


Casanova (Fucked Me Over)

by Hth



Series: Casanova [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Canon Compliant, Castiel/Dean Winchester UST, Daddy Issues, Demisexual Castiel (Supernatural), Free Will, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mark of Cain, Memory Alteration, Minor Drug Use, References to Croatoan/Endverse, Sam knows what's up, Theology, bee metaphors, did I mention the daddy issues?, handjobs, hey anybody remember Daphne Allen?, just so many daddy issues, references to exploitation of a minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-02-03 14:12:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 94,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12749910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hth/pseuds/Hth
Summary: Castiel has a six-year-long argument with God.  Dean can't fix it, but he can definitely blame himself.  (Sam can't believe he has to live through this story twice.)A love story.





	1. Prologue: Lazarus Rising / The Rapture

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I spell it Cass, both because it's canon and I'm exactly that kind of authoritarian, and because I prefer it on thematic and aesthetic grounds. I realize that's a weirdly controversial stance to take in this fandom, and I apologize to people who find it off-putting.
> 
> 2\. Each chapter is hooked to an episode or episodes, sometimes as a missing scene or an end-tag, sometimes as a straight re-write. I just go ahead and assume that everyone knows what's happening plot-wise at all times. This means the story is probably not user-friendly for people who follow the fandom but not the show, and I apologize to those folks, too.
> 
> 3\. ~~Updates on Fridays~~ ~~Updates pretty often.~~ Finished! Confetti! It's a parade!
> 
> 4\. Title from the song by Allie X. I recommend the acoustic version.

 

The war in Heaven begins when Hell is harrowed to rescue Dean Winchester, though no one but perhaps God can see it at the time. Castiel certainly cannot see it, lost as he is in the power and the pride of leading Heaven's fiercest battalion of warriors, charged by Michael himself with the mission to save Creation.

Pride is the most terrible of sins, and it is Castiel's mortal weakness. In the moment when he reaches for Dean, and Dean's blackened eyes widen with terror and awe and hope, Castiel pulses with the pride of Lucifer. He feels invulnerable. He ceases to be a devoted soldier of the Lord in that instant, loses his mind and his will and his grace in the blinding certainty that this mighty deed is accomplished through his strength, and this singular and precious creature is redeemed through a touch of his hand.

He barely notices how celestial lightning flashes through the arm he creates as he extends it, how Dean's shadowy form smokes and screams as pure divinity begins to burn the dross of Hell from him. All he feels is power and righteousness and victory.

An Adversary wakes within Castiel, hidden from sight, watchful and wanting and lethal. In time it will gestate and transform, and Castiel will Fall to its promises of power. He will wreak havoc in Heaven and upon Earth, he will slaughter the meek and the warlike just the same, he will defy his superiors and proclaim himself God.

Castiel, a dutiful if apparently unextraordinary servant of Heaven, is ruined, laid waste by his own greatest victory, by the sin of pride. Some angels will forgive him for it, others never, but they will all agree on the nature of his crimes and on how it all began.

They will be wrong.

 

After the harrowing, Castiel is granted the exquisite honor of giving his report directly to Michael, bathed in the Archangel's fiery presence. His original orders had come to him through Zachariah, who is highly placed in the service of Michael, for reasons Castiel cannot fathom. He dislikes the unctuous and overly sly Zachariah and cannot comprehend what Michael finds praiseworthy about him. If Castiel continues to rise in Michael's estimation, perhaps he will soon be in a position to question Zachariah's worthiness to hold the position he now occupies, and Castiel thinks he will enjoy that.

It will also be a genuine service to the cause of Heaven, Castiel is convinced.

"Receive our gratitude, little brother," Michael tells him, and the heat of it rolls over Castiel's form, volcanic and not entirely comfortable, but an honor, such a profound honor. "Dean Winchester is essential to our plans to halt Lucifer's return. You have greatly won our trust and admiration; the mission that we projected would take nearly a hundred years has been completed under your leadership in fewer than forty."

Castiel preens.

“You may request a boon," Michael tells him.

There can be only one response, and Castiel is quick to make it. “Return me to the fight. Let me prove myself again."

“So eager for war, Castiel?" Michael says, the resonance of his lazy, leonine affection brushing over Castiel's form, burnishing his edges in the bloodlight of sunrise.

“Eager to witness your defeat of the Adversary, beloved," Castiel says.

It is well received. Castiel is on the rise. He tastes glory between every melodious note of his body.

“You have been making contact with potential vessels?" Michael inquires. He does not say what Castiel's new assignment will be, but Castiel knows. It can only be Dean Winchester. He has redeemed the righteous one, and now he will be given the mission to keep him safe until the Final Battle, when Lucifer will be destroyed forever and the world brought into the perfect peace for which God designed it.

It is everything Castiel has ever wanted and more.

In the blink of his wheels, Castiel reviews the work of the last fistful of Heavenly seconds. “I have, and I have found the one you want." He is eager to tell Michael everything, buoyant with the need for more praise. “Jimmy Novak. He is strong, he is devout, and I love him."

He says it guilelessly and is unprepared for the quick dissonance of Michael's reprimand. Castiel shudders under the density of it.

Has he spoken a falsehood, all unwitting? He is not sure that he loves Jimmy Novak, but he likes him very much. Admires his honest decency, his ease in making friends, his single-minded loyalty to his family. When Jimmy prays, he does not pray for rest or pleasure or prosperity, but for the repose of his parents' souls, the health and happiness of his mate and child, and for himself only that his eyes might be opened to whatever little opportunity to improve the world God might see fit to send.

Castiel likes that prayer. It deserves to be answered.

Castiel likes Jimmy Novak. He deserves to save the world.

Castiel is being reprimanded and he doesn't understand why. He makes careful obeisance to Michael, seeking forgiveness, but he can't help saying, “I have been told that the joining is easier and the bond more solid when the angel and the vessel also share...emotion."

He is afraid to say the word again, but Michael hears it in his flimsy evasion and batters Castiel with disapproval again. He is causing no pain, but he will not be ignored. “Benjamin told you that?" he says scornfully, and Castiel lowers himself again, makes himself humble. He holds back his friend's name, although the damage has been done. Of course Michael knows who told him. Michael probably knows that Castiel has long been guilty of envying Benjamin the longevity and faithfulness of his vessel.

He is a fool to think he can hide anything from an Archangel, but for the affection he bears Benjamin, he chooses not to confess.

“Choose another vessel," Michael commands. “One who does not tempt you to sin."

There can be only one response, but this time Castiel writhes, uncomfortable and unwilling. His place is to serve, his place is to merge his will with the will of Heaven as delivered to him in the forge of an Archangel's belly. He knows this; any silly, half-fledged sparkling of an angel would know as much, and Castiel is far from that.

Instead he says, “But...love is a great virtue, not a sin."

“It is a great virtue in humans," Michael says, “who were created to love God their Father. Created because such love was not demanded or desired from our kind."

“But I do love God," Castiel says, unthinking.

Michael thunders and Michael burns. Michael is a bolt through the beams of Castiel's walls, rattling him apart, spilling him into grains of unmelted glass. “Correct yourself, Castiel," he commands. “You cast your sight down a dangerous path. Lucifer defied God and called it love of Him, and found too late that there was no redemption. At this moment of all moments in time, we cannot trust a servant who may be in sympathy with Lucifer."

Castiel coils, arches, spins in panic. How could it all be slipping through his pinions so quickly? “No, I have never sympathized with the Adversary! Beloved, you know me, you must know." He makes obeisance. He shivers regret and submission and humility at Michael. He does everything he can.

“Choose another vessel," Michael says.

If Castiel refuses, he will not be forced. He will merely be replaced.

He thinks of Dean Winchester in his grip, of how he struggled and how Castiel held him tight, rose up with him, would not let him Fall back into his suffering. Of the shocks of the power released as they surfaced into the higher planes, the sky screaming, the ground exploding, Earth itself resisting, Fate shrieking and promising revenge. He thinks of what strength and faith his task required, and how in the moment he was tempted to doubt he could complete his mission, he looked down at his burden and saw pain and sin floating away like old ash, revealing the endless agate whorls of color that scored and spiraled deep beneath the surface of the soul he held.

No one else, no other angel, can be Dean Winchester's guardian -- from his mantle to his marrow, Castiel knows this, knows the cosmos itself cannot abide their separation. It cannot be and it will not be, and knowing this emboldens him to speak.

“Jimmy Novak is the best choice," he says. “He is close in age to the righteous one, born geographically near to him. He will seem more familiar and win Dean Winchester's trust more easily than any of the others. I am clear-minded; this is tactics, not sentiment. It is right that it should be Jimmy Novak. I am _right_."

Michael weighs him up. Castiel feels his respect and his wariness as they weave together and apart, and he knows he is close to squandering the trust he's earned.

He has no choice but to hold strong and steady and believe.

“Beware of these urges of the heart you mistake for love," Michael says at last, grudging assent. Castiel flutters humble agreement when he wants to chime exultation. “Obedience, and only obedience, is demanded and desired of you, Castiel."

Castiel bows and shines.

 

“So, I want to help you," Jimmy says. He stands on his own porch, but Castiel feels how lost he is, how far adrift on a sea more vast than he could ever comprehend. “I'm about to lose my family here, if you don't tell me how.... Please, Castiel, just talk to me. What do you want from me?"

It is such a relief to be free now to come to Jimmy, to bathe him in light and make him promises that Castiel is permitted to keep.  “Jimmy Novak," he says, and Castiel knows he should expedite this process, because Dean Winchester and his followers have already tried once to summon him, to the misfortune of the medium who would not heed Castiel's earnest warnings, and now that they have his name they will surely try again soon. If he does not have his vessel by that time, he could be forced to manifest in his true form and injure more humans, even, God forbid it, the righteous man. Still, Castiel has been planning this encounter for months, and dreaming of such a joining for far longer. He has crafted this speech carefully and cannot bring himself to skip any of it. “The Earth is entering a time of darkness and peril such as has not been seen in the memory of mankind. God and the Archangels, in their wisdom, have set in motion a plan to save this world, and we must all be brave and complete the tasks for which we are suited. The righteous man is nearby, beset by danger on all sides. We are his shield, the guardian angel chosen for him by God, but we cannot move freely on this plane without a vessel. Do you understand?"

“Yes," Jimmy says, and Castiel can feel that he does. The knowledge of what a vessel is, what he was born to become, runs in his blood.

“The time for which we have prepared you is at hand. Join with us. Heaven and Earth and God Himself have ordained you for this mission; have faith and open yourself to us." Castiel can feel Jimmy's anxiety. They are always anxious, and sometimes with good reason, but Jimmy is _for_ this, will live and thrive where others fail. Castiel knows it is not always possible to protect the humans pressed into Heaven's service, but Jimmy is different. Once the joining is complete, he will understand.

“Promise my family will be okay," Jimmy says, “and I'll do it"

“Gladly we promise this," Castiel says, breathing his admiration and his friendship into the words. “And for your family's sacrifice, rest assured that they as well as you will truly deserve the Heaven that is prepared for them."

“Then yes," Jimmy says, and Castiel begins the descent into the vessel.

As his grace begins to blur at the edges into Jimmy's thoughts, then to delve deeper, he can feel the strength and purity of Jimmy's love and protectiveness. Castiel takes hold of these human emotions, firmly but gently, and bends them, transmutes them, sweeps tender thoughts of Amelia and Claire away and presses into Jimmy's body and mind in their place the memory of Dean Winchester, the knowledge of their mission. Jimmy resists at first, tries to shake him off like a swarm of flies, but Castiel lulls him into a hypnogogic half-sleep, reassuring him all the while that this is why Jimmy was the only choice, that his love and Castiel's obedience can and must bind together and make them more than angel or human alone.

Power and righteousness and victory. Castiel is on the rise.

Jimmy is strong, and even in this state he thrashes, grasping futilely after the tenuous memory of his loved ones. Castiel could simply let the joining take its course; these initial points of imperfect alignment always wear themselves smooth over time. But he cares for Jimmy, so he take a moment to find the seed of Jimmy's mind, to fold his grace around it and pulse as much warmth and confidence over and through it as he can.

A sound interrupts him, a dim voice from far away. Castiel grows very still, listening to it.

He is being summoned.

 _Peace, Jimmy Novak, be not afraid_ , he murmurs to the narrow sliver of his friend's consciousness that remains alert, that resists being soothed. _Do you hear it, calling our name? That's his voice. He knows us already, he seeks us, he longs to see us again as we long to see him. It's time to go to him._

Castiel commands and the vessel moves. He is sure and confident of his abilities and his mission and everything it means to be an angel of the Lord. He is ready for the fight, and ready to look with human eyes on the human face of Dean Winchester and see what he may see.

“Daddy?"

That means him. He knows that and freezes in his tracks, before he shakes himself off and realizes that it doesn't mean him, not at all.

Castiel considers his possible next actions.

He could heed Michael's warning, fix his gaze on obedience to the mission, submit to the summoning and to the fight. He could walk forward and spare not a single glance back at Jimmy Novak's child.

He could show kindness. She is an innocent, created by God to love and be loved. Does that service that she performs, common though it may be, not call for some reward as well? He could soothe her fears as he did her father's. He could sit on the porch and take her hands and tell her that all will soon be well, that the angels are arriving on Earth to defeat the Devil on her behalf and leave her world forever redeemed.

Instead, Castiel does neither. He hesitates, too softhearted to hold a steady course, too obedient to offer her mercy. He looks over his shoulder, but he does not look in her eyes.

The summoning pulls at him. They have his name; he would be compelled to go even if it were not the thing he wanted most on Earth, which it is.

Beneath the surface, envy sinks its fangs into him, needle-bright and venomous.

What comfort does he owe to Claire Novak, after all? Her part in this is small. God demands and desires nothing from her, nothing but this simple, filial love that comes so naturally she need not even choose it, while Castiel's work, and perhaps his suffering, has only just begun.

“I am not your father," he says, and what he means is, _I cannot love you. It is not permitted._

When he averts his eyes and walks away, he knows it's a sin.

 

Pride is Castiel's mortal weakness. He Falls as Lucifer once Fell, claiming to know more than God, claiming that he could reign over a more perfect Creation. He thwarts the Final Battle, and then he plunges Heaven into not one but two wars from which it never fully recovers, and all angels agree that Castiel was always covetous and vain, always eager for personal glory and prone to overestimating his own importance.

Few understand the truth about Castiel's great Fall. Michael, perhaps. Gabriel. Metatron. And God. Not all of them love and forgive Castiel, but they all see him clearly, in the beginning and at the end. 


	2. Free To Be You and Me

Castiel's trip to the brothel with Dean is a spectacular success, in that he manages to escape without putting his vessel through anything traumatic, being required to finish his very unappetizing beverage, or angering the single friend he has not yet managed to alienate. Yes, he does get slapped twice, and the particular tone of Chastity's outraged squawk is unnecessarily piercing, but that's all a small price to pay.

Far from angered, Dean seems...pleased by the entire embarrassing ordeal. Castiel feels as if a very audacious gamble has paid off for him, although he can't claim any real credit. He did everything he could think of short of playing dead in order to make no decisions at all.

Maybe this should be his strategy more often. That's a depressing thought.

"You did it on purpose, didn't you?" Dean asks him, handing him one of the beers he's brought in from the cooler in the car. Castiel pries the cap off with his fingernail, and for some reason that makes Dean huff in irritation at him, but he doesn't comment, just uncaps his own beer with the edge of his ring and taps the base of the bottle against Castiel's bottle in what Castiel recognizes as nonverbal reassurance that Dean still likes him.

It's often hard to tell from Dean's face, voice, or body, all of which frequently seem to radiate impatience and disapproval. But here he still is, sitting on a badly water-damaged couch in an abandoned house well after midnight, keeping Castiel company with a beer out of his private stores. With Dean Winchester, he's learned, it isn't face, voice, or body that tells the tale. It's whether or not he leaves you.

Right now, Castiel is faring better on the only scale that matters than Dean's own brother is.

"I don't know what you mean," he says, when he realizes he hasn't answered the question.

"Got yourself kicked out of the cathouse."

"There were cats? I'm sorry I missed that part. I'd like to pet a cat." Dean is in the midst of a drink when he says it, and it seems to go down the wrong pipe. "I've only seen them on the internet," Castiel explains. "And in alleys, but those don't seem to be quite the same kind. Less pettable."

"Well, now I know what to get you on your next last night on Earth," Dean says. "But seriously--" He'd been perfectly serious, but he lets that go. "-- you didn't have to do it at all if you didn't want to. You can tell me no, I've seen you do it."

He can, but he doesn't like to. "I could tell you were trying to be kind," Castiel says. "I was trying to accept your gift in the spirit it was offered."

Dean looks him up and down as if trying to read him. Castiel, to his knowledge, looks just like he has since he met Dean, but he submits to the examination. "Is sex even a thing angels care about?"

Not a simple question, nor one Castiel especially wants to answer. "In our true forms," he hedges, "we do not experience sexual attraction as you would recognize it. Why would we need to, when we are not beings that reproduce sexually?"

"So, educated fleas, but not angels," Dean says nonsensically. "Yeah, that makes sense. Wait, as I would recognize-- Wait, in your _true_ forms. Which you're not right now."

There never seems to be much point to hedging around Dean, who is far too clever not to catch him at it and far too ruthless to let a comfortable half-truth stand. "In our vessels, we are capable of sexual feeling, yes," Castiel says shortly. "My understanding is that we do not feel the desire as keenly as humans do, although obviously I have no basis for comparison."

"Checks out, though," Dean says. "It would be angel spring break every time you guys showed up, otherwise. Well, I still think it's a waste of a perfectly good human body if you never get a chance to take it for a spin, but...I probably shouldn't have chucked you straight into the water like that. You should at least get to touch a boob before some jerk starts flinging hookers at you."

"I don't care to touch--" On further reflection, that seems likelier to prolong this conversation than to end it. "You're not a jerk," he says instead. "Or at least, you're not just _some_ jerk."

Dean chuckles. "Cass, you sweet-talker," he says.

Between this and _I haven't laughed like that in years_ , tonight is turning out to be a high-water mark for compliments from Dean. Castiel feels in equal measure pleased and unbalanced by that. He takes a sip of his beer, which is also unappetizing, but milder in its flavor than the earlier one, and decides that this has been on balance a very nice night. He'd still far prefer to die after having accomplished something remotely useful on Earth, but in the meantime, it's been...a nice night.

He doesn't really think he will die, though. There's no particular logic behind that, only faith. Castiel doesn't feel finished yet.

"Ah, what the hell," Dean growls. Castiel blinks, because it sounds like a response to something, but Castiel is the only one here and he's almost positive he didn't say anything. But Dean has obviously been galvanized into action by something; he puts his beer aside and begins unbuttoning and rolling up the sleeve of his shirt with the determined air of a man setting himself to a task. He takes Castiel's beer, too, and Castiel didn't particularly want it, but that still seems untoward. He sets it on the windowsill next to his own abandoned beer, then pops off both his ring and his bracelet and adds them to the collection before he reaches over and unhooks the waistband of Castiel's pants.

Whatever Castiel was expecting, it wasn't this.

He's slow to gather his wits, and then distracted by the clumsiness of the whole process. The zipper is easily enough managed, but there are still layers and geometry and Dean's shoulder appears to be at a very odd angle. After a moment, Castiel realizes that the logistics are really the least of the things he has questions about. "What are you doing?"

"Gripping you tight and raising you from celibacy," Dean says. "Would you please just make things easy for once in your life? Scoot forward."

Castiel does his best, shifting his hips toward the edge of the couch so that he's partially reclined against the back, and that does seem to sort things out somewhat, allowing Dean to nudge down Castiel's undergarment and lift his penis free, settling his hand around the shaft without obstruction. Castiel has seen his own erection before; one quite naturally seems to happen along whenever Castiel washes his genitals, and he would be dishonest if he pretended he hadn't considered his options. In the end, it always seemed to constitute an unnecessary trespass on the body he still hopes can be returned to its rightful owner. Loyalty to Jimmy Novak -- Jimmy, who was a virgin on his wedding night, who has never been less than scrupulously faithful to his wife -- seemed the virtue with the greater claim than whatever curiosity Castiel has about the nature of human sexuality.

The same loyalty also constitutes valid grounds on which to object to what Dean is doing right now, but suddenly it all seems...more complicated than before.

Dean isn't, in a technical sense, doing very much. He's only holding Castiel's penis, letting his thumb rub softly under the lip of its head, then lower still, tracing a prominent vein on its underside. None of it is what Castiel would have thought of to do to himself -- ironically, Dean is demonstrating something far closer to _curiosity_ than Castiel did in his own vague but decidedly friction-heavy fantasizing.

A troubling thought occurs to him. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"Are you kidding me?" Dean sounds genuinely offended. "My life has been a masterclass in how to jerk off in boring hotel rooms and shitty abandoned squats. I could do this in my sleep. Hell, I might catch a little nap right now."

"Don't do that," Castiel says quickly. Dean smiles at him, then interrupts himself long enough to lick a few times, broadly and messily, over his own palm.

When he begins touching Castiel again, he's more assertive, either because he's overcome some initial mixed feelings of his own, or else in response to Castiel vocalizing interest directly. The saliva on his hand eases the rub of skin on skin, but not too much. Too much might not be a good thing. Castiel likes the drag, the heel of Dean's hand leaving a blood-hot burn that jolts through him, discomfort undergirding the pleasure as he's discovered the poisonous bite of bourbon deepens its sweetness. It requires more effort to breathe now, so he breathes less, and suddenly he's dizzy. The world warps a little in the darkness, and he wonders if he's imagining all of this.

He's heard that sometimes when an angel is very deeply joined with the vessel, it becomes possible to sleep, even to dream. Castiel has always wanted to know what dreaming feels like. It could well feel like this.

"You okay there, buddy?" Dean asks.

That is both a very simple question to answer and...not. "Too early to say, I think," he says shakily, and Dean chuckles.

"Okay, well, keep me posted."

Castiel feels the pleasure -- it's not a subtle sensation, of course he feels it -- and he knows that on at least one level, the pleasure is the entire point. It's a gift, a gift Dean has been trying to give him all night, one that he seemed slightly incensed to learn no one else had offered Castiel already. It still seems that there must be -- more, that Castiel hasn't yet parsed out all the reasons that it means so much to Dean that this happen now, tonight. Castiel would like to understand. His curiosity about Dean Winchester has always far outstripped his curiosity about human sexuality. "Is this your favorite thing about being human?"

"What, handjobs?" Dean says.

"Is that what this is? I thought we were having sex."

"Okay, sure. Is sex my favorite thing about being human? Not gonna lie, it's on the list."

That isn't especially revelatory. Castiel waits for him to say more, but he doesn't. He only extends two fingers and runs them in circles around the tip of Castiel's penis. Castiel feels it twitch, and then twitch again, harder, when Dean makes a small, pleased hum and pushes his fingertip through the fluid oozing from its opening. "Dean," Castiel gasps, unsure if he needs an answer to a question, or just to hear Dean's voice.

"Yeah," Dean says, presumably in answer to the question that Castiel may or may not be asking. Surprisingly gently, he says, "Intense, huh?" Castiel nods. "You're okay," Dean assures him. "Just enjoy it."

Castiel thinks he can do that.

The room is very quiet, which makes every sound seem especially loud, almost as loud as Castiel's heartbeat. Too quiet? Castiel is choosing the route of least resistance again, making no decisions. Belatedly, he realizes that he has not in fact permitted or refused this sudden intimacy, only acquiesced to it, and even with his limited experience Castiel can intuit that this is not sought-after behavior in a sexual partner, or perhaps even very polite. _Keep me posted_ , Dean said, which Castiel understands to mean _Continue to update me on your well-being_ , so he says, "I like this." The words create a slight rasp as they shove through Castiel's throat, and he wonders if it's bad form to take another drink before the sex is over.

Dean grunts in acknowledgment.

Castiel's mouth really does feel dry (a new sensation; he doesn't like it), and he sees no reason this should be about deprivation -- quite the opposite, one would think -- so he twists slightly and reaches for the beer Dean has set behind him on the windowsill. He takes a long drink, and from the corner of his eye he notices a judgmental twitch of Dean's eyebrows, so perhaps that was not socially acceptable after all. At the same time, Dean's hand seems to tighten and tug upward with a new, slower curl that reminds Castiel of rising smoke, which -- feels like a reward, whether or not Dean means for it to. _Do that again_ , Castiel wants to say, but what comes out is a far simpler, more guttural, "Please."

It was the socially acceptable thing, Castiel gathers, because it makes Dean smile at him. Dean has a wide variety of smiles, sly and sad, biting and bitter and youthful and deceitful, a smile for nearly any occasion, but this is Castiel's favorite, a kind smile with a slight crinkle of his eyes that acknowledges Castiel's many flaws but signals that Dean is indulgent of them -- even, Castiel dares to think, faintly charmed by them.

This is the smile, Castiel is almost positive, that Dean reserves for his friends, which is what makes it so valuable and so beautiful.

Dean Winchester has always been beautiful, but tonight, like this, his beauty is qualitatively different -- distracting at best, and if Castiel is being very honest with himself, dangerous. The moonlight falls through the window on the smooth line of his cheekbone and the veil of his eyelashes, throwing flickering shadows from the clever motions of his hand, and it suits him. It softens his harsh edges, makes the slight arrogance of his smile into something more mysterious and knowing, catches the notes of gold in his skin and eyes and illuminates them. Castiel _wants_ something from Dean, wants it in the flashy human way, as though desire doesn't live within him but comes from nowhere and grips him in its fist.

This, Castiel knows, is a very bad thing. Yes, he's already in rebellion, yes, he's in the midst of laying a trap for an Archangel who hates him, yes, his relationship with God is on unsteady ground at the moment, but these are Castiel's choices, born out of the essence of what Castiel is: servant of Heaven, a warrior on a divine mission. To do other than what he has done so far is to be other than what he was made by God to be; he believes this, even if every angel in Heaven tells him he is prideful and deluded. He believes.

The hitch of his breath and the throb of his heart and the way his eyes burn when they catch the moonlight as it's thrown off of Dean's perfect cheekbone -- this isn't from him or of him, doesn't belong to him. It isn't for him, any more than Dean Winchester is for him.

Dean is for himself alone; he has been very clear about that. He has no intention of submitting to Michael's possession, and how much less interest he must have in being the property of any lesser angel.

And that is what Castiel wants. He doesn't even truly understand what it means, but the words feel right in his head, the truth of them pumping viscerally through him like blood. He wants Dean to be _his_. His mission, his victory, his future, his -- brother, and somehow more than all of those things.

That can't happen. Dean would never allow it, and Castiel is almost certain that _God_ would never allow it.

His stomach roils and the darkness closes in around him, and he spills the beer in his hand on the couch as he pitches back at the shoulders and up at the hips and cries out in sharp pleasure and sharper fear. He knows he's Falling. He doesn't know if there's time to stop it yet.

He doesn't think he wants to stop it.

"Hey, hey, hey," Dean says, supporting the back of Castiel's head with his free hand. "Don't flip out on me. Breathe."

"I can't," Castiel whines, not caring that the very fact he can speak the words proves him a liar. " _Dean, please."_

"Okay," Dean says, and it almost is.

Orgasm doesn't so much break the spell as it does exhaust Castiel. He's spent and dazed, watching Dean wipe his hand thoughtlessly on the edge of the couch, and what had been a profound moral and theological crisis only moments ago now feels more academic. More manageable.

It's a fact that he cares far more for Dean than Dean does for him, but that's always been the case. They'll continue to muddle through, one way or another, because they have no choice.

For the first time, Castiel feels uncomfortably exposed. He tucks everything away and seals himself up inside his clothes, and that doesn't really solve the problem, but it's a start. He has no idea what to say to Dean; he was hoping Dean would go first.

He doesn't, so Castiel finally says, "Thank you." And then, because he knows that reciprocity is nearly always the socially acceptable thing, "Should I -- repay you in some way?"

"I take cash and traveler's checks," Dean says. That is a confusing response, and when Dean stops staring into the middle distance long enough to glance at Castiel's face, he seems to realize that. "Kidding," he says. "Sorry. Nah, that was out of the goodness of my heart."

That seems reasonable; frustrating as Dean can be, he has never given Castiel reason to doubt that his heart is fundamentally good. Still, Castiel's instincts tell him that something is wrong with Dean, and though he knows Dean values his privacy, it's almost outside Castiel's control, this urge to reach out with his grace, stroking and petting along the serpentine coils of Dean's unhappy thoughts. "You gave me money," he says slowly. "To give to the -- the other ones, the women."

"I'm sure they had very good hearts, too," Dean says, "but they were on the clock."

Castiel can feel himself gaining purchase, the right thoughts rising like slow waves out of the sea of Dean's consciousness, silhouettes Castiel can nearly see the shape of. "And you are -- off the clock." No. Not quite. "You are retired?"

"Dammit, Cass, are you in my brain?" Dean does not have the power to eject Castiel by force, but his palpable anger is more than enough chastisement to make Castiel realize what he's doing and launch them both apart with a disorienting snap. "Don't fucking do that!"

"I'm sorry," he says, sincerely. "Dean, I'm sorry, it was an accident."

"It's fine," Dean grumbles. "Just -- keep it to your damn self, all right? It's not something I go around telling people."

"Even Sam?" Dean looks angry, and Castiel holds up his hands. "I didn't see that, I guessed. It was a guess."

Fortunately, Dean believes him. "Especially Sam."

"Why especially?"

Dean rolls his shoulders in something like a shrug and leans back on the couch, taking up his beer again. "I only did it -- a few times, for a few months, one summer. Dad was gone a lot more than usual, and he didn't always -- leave enough money, he wasn't the best at estimating what we were going to need. Usually I just lifted what we ran out of, but sometimes there were school expenses, or the -- power would go out or something. Sometimes you just need an influx of cash, you know?" Castiel nods as though he does know. "So there were a couple of places, a rest stop, a truck stop. I could raise it fast, it was easy. It was like 1994, flannel and combat boots were the look; it was the only year the Winchesters were actually in style."

Castiel doesn't see what boots have to do with anything, but it doesn't seem to be essential to the story, so he passes it over. "You didn't tell Sam because you didn't want him to try to help with this, as he did with hunting."

He is doing his best to make sense out of a cultural milieu he barely understands, and normally Dean is indulgent or even amused by his fumbling, but for some reason this time he looks fiercely offended by Castiel's clumsiness. "Sam was a _child_ , Cass, that was never even a question. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"You were also a juvenile," Castiel offers in his own defense. "Humans don't fully physically mature until-- "

"It's totally different," Dean says firmly.

"I see."

That seems to be enough to get him forgiven. "I just never told him because I don't want him adding it to the Misery Scrapbook he keeps in his head of all the ways he thinks Dad fucked us over. It wasn't Dad's fault. God, he was so pissed when he caught me at it." Dean sounds deeply fond when he recalls that memory, which Castiel can't make sense of at all. "I got the ass-kicking of my life for that."

"He beat you?"

"No, Dad didn't _beat_ us. He smacked us sometimes, when we deserved it -- hell, probably way less often than we deserved it."

"The distinction is not clear to me," Castiel admits.

"It's totally different."

"I see," Castiel says, because it worked last time, even though honestly Dean is a _terrible_ storyteller who never provides enough contextual information even when Castiel directly requests it.

Dean is actually extremely trying in a vast number of ways. If he didn't have those cheekbones, people probably wouldn't tolerate him at all.

"So your father was angry and forbade it, and you stopped," Castiel summarizes, to check his own comprehension.

"Yeah," Dean says. "Something like that."

He's grown moody again, drifting further from Castiel, alone with thoughts that feel dark to Castiel as they press close to the edges of his grace. "Dean?" he says softly, unsure if it's possible or permitted to draw Dean back toward him again.

"Sorry, I was just thinking-- That was the worst fight Dad and I ever had. Usually I didn't ever talk back to him, or push back when he laid down the law, anything like that, but -- he just made me so mad."

"How so?"

"Oh, he went full Marine on me, hard-core Full Metal Jacket type stuff. Conduct unbecoming, and didn't I have any sense of honor. Can you fucking believe that? Sense of honor. So I told him no, I didn't, because he never taught me about honor. He taught me how to pick locks. How to fence car parts. How to hustle pool and palm aces at the card table, how to forge signatures, how to go through trash bins for pre-approved cards, how to lie to the cops and lie at school and lie to social workers and lie to a suspect and lie and _lie_ and _lie._ And he taught me when you need a job done, you man up and you do it, but what he didn't teach me was anything like honor." Castiel sits in patient silence, because this is something he knows. The love and the anger, the way a childish trust that Father will give you what you need and want becomes the pain of Creation's brokenness and your own solitude within it. Silence is the only just response, the dark soil where love and anger both take root. "So anyway," Dean says at last, clearly reaching for a lighter tone, "I said basically that to him, and that, uh -- I think I called us a pack of white-trash grifters and bums."

"If he was anything like you," Castiel says, "I imagine he took that badly."

"He was a lot like me, and he took it extremely badly. Like I said, it was our worst fight. I crossed a line, I know. Eh, teenagers are assholes, and honestly that was a rough summer for everyone. He was gone basically all of it. I was telling Sammy we were camping in the backyard for fun and not because there were no lights or AC inside and he was pretending to believe me. I made a hundred bucks from my first blowjob; that was a fucking fortune, to me and Sammy. We went out and had steaks. It was.... I don't know, it was good. I was proud that I figured something out, that I was turning things around for us. I know Dad wasn't really mad at me about it. He was trying to protect me; I was at that age when he couldn't actually stop me from doing anything, so he didn't have any leverage left except to throw the fear of God into me."

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Perhaps Castiel is a fool to seek God so assiduously. Perhaps if he were wise, he would be running in the opposite direction. Michael told him to beware of loving God too much.

Michael gave him the mission to protect a righteous man, when all the while he intended to snuff that righteousness out of existence and use the body that remained as a weapon powerful enough to blot out the world. Castiel no longer considers Michael a reliable source of information on love.

"He just made me so damn mad when he tried to make me feel small about it," Dean is saying. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this."

"I asked," Castiel says.

"I never talk about it, though."

"Do many people ask?"

Dean snorts. "You got me there."

Somehow they have turned further and further toward each other as they talked, leaning closer in the dark, voices low. Dean has one foot on the floor and the other leg folded on the couch; his knee touches Castiel's hip. "I think you could tell me all this," Castiel says slowly, "because you know I don't think you are small. And never could."

Dean licks his lips. "Maybe," he says, but it sounds to Castiel like _Yes._

"Thank you," Castiel says again, but this time it's for gratitude's sake and not to fill a silence. If anything, he hates to break this one. "For facing Raphael with me, and for the sexual experience--" That makes Dean smile. "--but mostly.... I feel I know you better now. I'm glad of it"

"You knew me pretty well before," Dean says. "Unlike certain Winchesters, my daddy issues aren't actually the biggest thing I got going on. And my inadvisable teenage adventures in hustling definitely aren't."

"Still," Castiel says. "You're somehow easier to like, taken as a whole with your -- issues and your -- inadvisable adventures. All of them, not just the...." He wonders if there is a socially acceptable way to end that sentence.

"You wanna try that again?" Dean offers, visibly torn between being offended and amused.

He would, if he had any reason to believe his second attempt wouldn't turn out much like the first. "Without them, you're really just someone who yells at me a lot," Castiel points out. Dean doesn't really yell at him a _lot_ , but Castiel still feels he puts up with more hostility than the average guardian angel.

"Can't I be all that and more?"

"I think you can," Castiel says, and he means it very much. He puts his arm on the back of the couch so that his thumb brushes up against Dean's arm, and the faint touch jolts through him. This really won't end well, Castiel thinks. But then, he's had that thought about nearly everything Dean Winchester has said or done since they met, so in all fairness, it has to be Castiel's turn by now. "May I kiss you?" he asks.

For a moment, it seems as if it will be exactly that simple. Dean's eyes widen a little, then go to Castiel's mouth. Dean is beautiful, and there's moonlight, and Castiel might (but probably won't) die tomorrow, and they both know they'll never tell anyone about any of tonight, and it might just be...easy, for once in their lives. Castiel leans a little closer, and the air between them tastes like -- acquiescence, at least, and maybe even like _Yes_.

Dean puts a hand on Castiel's shoulder and shoves him lightly. "Come on, don't, man," he says. "Don't make it weird."

"I don't know what that means," Castiel says.

"That thing where you get a crush on the first person to touch your junk," Dean says. "It's weird and sad and you're about a million years too old for it. I was doing a favor for a friend, that's it."

His voice is authoritative, but not unkind. It feels like a rebuke anyway, like he thinks Castiel should've known the answer all along and it was unreasonable of him to ask. That strikes Castiel as unfair. "I was -- asking as a friend," he says.

"Nobody kisses their friends," Dean says. "That's not a thing."

"Oh." Dean always seems very sure what is and is not _a thing_. Castiel doesn't even know what that means, but Dean never seems to doubt himself on the thingness of any given thing. "I've made you uncomfortable."

"I'm fine," Dean says, but he's turning away and casting his eyes around as if he very much needs something to occupy his attention right now that isn't Castiel. "Okay, I'm the one who sleeps, so I get the couch," he says. "You go -- meditate or whatever you do, somewhere. Wherever."

 _Not here_ , he obviously means.

Castiel obliges him. On the other side of the kitchen, a door leads to what was once a screened-in porch, though now the screen is mostly theoretical. There's a metal lawn chair, however, and four dead plants in terracotta pots. Castiel sits and looks at the moonless dark between the branches of the trees outside. This was how he intended to spend his night anyway, so... in a sense, absolutely nothing has changed.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. The End

The zombies aren't great and Dean is struggling not to let himself think about what must've gone down at Bobby's house, but it doesn't feel like an according-to-Hoyle hellscape until he finds his Baby's rotting corpse. "Oh, no, Baby, what did they do to you?" he murmurs, running his hand over her rusted and collapsing steel framework, and he knows that he and Sam must both be dead by 2014.

That seems about right, honestly. Dean wasn't counting on collecting Social Security, and last he checked, half of Heaven was yelling in his ear about the big countdown clock in the sky, so five years actually seems on the generous side. Still, it's a weird feeling to know that there's nobody left, not one person who gave enough of a shit about Dean to take care of the only thing he ever had that mattered to him. He thinks of the picture that led him here -- Bobby and Cass, the two people in the world he trusts as much as family, and maybe it's petty in the middle of the Apocalypse, but he's pissed at them both. They know him well enough to know how much he'd hate this, and they couldn't be bothered-- ?

Dean doesn't get a chance to work up much of a temper over it.

Also, it turns out he's not dead yet. But he is a real son of a bitch.

 

Long story short, Bobby is dead, Sam is the Devil, Dean's a one-man military dictatorship, and Cass is living out some kind of Fall of the Roman Empire performance piece. When Dean tries to put all that in order in his head, figure out who this life has fucked up the worst, he decides he has to leave Bobby off the list. Sure, dying in wheelchair when you can't even fight back has to suck, but at least it seems like he was the only one of them who didn't end up...corrupted somehow. He died _Bobby_.

Or maybe he didn't, Dean doesn't know. He's gonna tell himself that, though.

 

"You want some?" Cass says in the car, because this whole thing is a shitty After-School Special, just like Zachariah intended. _Hey, kids, just say no to drugs, and if you see a Lucifer where it doesn't belong, ask an Archangel for help right away!_

"Amphetamines?" Dean doesn't know why he's surprised. It's a perfectly good soldier's addiction, and Cass may be a dirty hippie now, but he wouldn't have been in that meeting, or in this car, if he weren't still a soldier.

"It's the perfect antidote to that absinthe." Dean almost smiles at that, because that's the Cass-est thing he's heard from Cass yet. Of course he's not getting hammered on post-Apocalyptic toilet moonshine. Of course it's _absinthe_. Even here and now, where time's been bent to the breaking point, there's something out-of-time about Cass, a little bit of snootiness or -- or elegance, Dean guesses. If he's being nice about it.

He wonders how long it's been since he was nice to Cass.

"Don't get me wrong, Cass," he says, "I, uh -- I'm happy that the stick is out of your ass, but -- what's going on? With the drugs and the orgies and the Love Guru crap?" Dean scowls a little at himself, because that came out kind of shitty. Is there even a non-shitty, supportive-friend way to say _The way you are is a gross mess, what went wrong_? Maybe not, but he could at least have skipped the part where he insulted Old Cass _and_ New Cass at the same time.

If Cass feels the insult through his chemical haze, he doesn't show it. He just laughs and laughs. "Two-thousand-and-nine, huh?" he drawls out. "Oh, I remember that year well. I remember the Cass you knew then, too. What a bag of dicks."

"He's okay," Dean mutters. Cass can be a dick sometimes, for sure. But Dean's allowed to admit that, because Dean's his friend. This guy, whoever he is, says Cass' name like he doesn't matter and he's never been missed. But Dean's not going to fight about it, not really, because this is his best chance to hear more about how life turns out for him; when Cass' acidic, barely leashed rage fades out, he seems to get chatty. "Well, then you know why all this is kind of a mindfuck," Dean says.

"Life, Dean, is a mindfuck," Cass says, with the cheery expansiveness of the most obnoxious happy drunks. "Time, Heaven, Creation -- all of it, just one long tea party of the damned. I'm not an angel anymore."

It takes Dean a second to realize that Cass has switched over to answering his question. "Oh," he says. "Well -- shit."

"Right? I could still use some of my powers, even after I Fell, but something about all the other angels leaving-- When they bailed I could feel it all just--" He makes a whistling noise, a rising note that gives Dean the image of Cass' wings flapping off to Heaven without him. "--draining away. And now, you know, I'm practically human. I mean, Dean, I'm all but useless. Last year? Broke my foot. Laid up for two months."

"That's rough, man," Dean says, knowing how insufficient it sounds, like he's commiserating with Cass for getting laid off instead of for being kicked out of Heaven. "So you're human. Well, welcome to the club."

"Thanks," Cass says wryly. "Except I used to belong to a much better club. And now I'm powerless, I'm hapless, I'm hopeless. I mean, why the hell _not_ bury myself in women and decadence, right? It's the end, baby; that's what decadence is for." Dean hears an uncomfortable echo of his own voice -- _Iniquity is one of the perks_.

He doesn't want to think about what role he played in all this -- if he tried to help Cass pull it together, or if he got some kind of fucked-up charge out of watching Cass adopt and then perfect Dean's own coping mechanisms. He doesn't want to think about it because he already pretty much knows.

"Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out?" Cass says. "But then, that's just how I roll."

Except it's not. If anything, it's how Dean rolls. Or at least that's how it used to be, but now it's five years later, and Cass is living it up like a rock star, while Dean looks like he's more capable of breathing fire than he is of cracking a smile. "That doesn't seem to be my take on the whole situation," he says, motioning toward the windshield and the tail-lights of the lead car ahead of them.

Cass laughs again. "Well, by 2014, I guess there aren't too many gongs you've left unbanged, so maybe that makes a difference," he says.

"Yeah," Dean says dryly, "it seems like I have a real rich, full life to look forward to."

Cass shoots him a look that's sympathetic. If Dean ignores the beard, it's almost his Cass' face there for a second. "Well, it's only been like this for a couple of years," he says. "Hey, for what it's worth, we spent most of 2010 screwing each others' brains out, so that's something you have to look forward to."

He winks at Dean, and now he's so fucking far from Dean's Cass that five years doesn't begin to touch it. "You're, uh, messing with me right now, right?" Dean says.

"Oh, come on, Dean," Cass says, and Dean knows it's true, because there's something in Cass' voice, some kind of lazy, thoughtless intimacy like you'd use with someone you knew back to front, inside and out. It's not a voice he's ever heard from Cass -- or from anybody, really, but he gets it instinctively. "Who are you lying to?"

He's not lying, but he can't really defend himself, mostly because he suspects that the Cass of 2014 knows Dean better than Dean knows himself. Still, he's _not_ lying -- doesn't lie to Cass, lies like a champ to people who don't matter, but not to his friends, so he's got to try something. "But I don't-- Cass, I think I'd know if I swung that way by now. You figure this stuff out in junior high. That's why God gave us puberty."

"You and those labels again. We're not gay, we're not queer, we're not whatever you think you have to be to get your rainbow in the mail. But you were lonely without Sam, and I was...trusting, I guess. I thought it meant something when you touched me, thought it meant I was passing some kind of test. It seemed like a natural transition, from eager servant of the will of Heaven to eager servant of the righteous man." Dean flinches at the sarcasm dripping from that.

"I'm sorry," he says.

And he is. He's so fucking sorry that he feels nauseous with it, because he knows for sure that at the very _least_ , best-case scenario, he watched Cass lose everything he had, power and friends and faith, and he armored himself against caring about it. Because times were tough, right? Because everyone was suffering, because why should it be easy on Cass when it wasn't easy on any of the rest of them? Probably he told Cass to suck it up, to deal with reality, not to feel anything if feeling got in the way of the fight.

Best-case scenario, he watched Cass fall apart and didn't do a goddamned thing to help. But apparently he got his dick wet, because you gotta have your priorities. He wonders if Cass and that Risa chick get drunk together. He wonders how many other people are eligible for that crappy club, the one full of people who looked to Dean for help and ended up used by him instead.

Cass looks over at him, startled and uncertain. Guess he hasn't heard those words from Dean in a while. "What do you mean?"

It would take hours to unravel everything he means, but in the meantime he says, "Well, it just seems like -- you don't remember it all that fondly, and knowing me and how I am with -- relationships, I'm just gonna assume that's my fault."

There's silence in the car for what feels like a long time. Dean does his best to make out the scenery outside the window and not to think about the _worst_ -case scenario.

"I remember it fondly. That year, at least," Cass says softly, and. Yeah. That's the one.

Fuck.

"So what happened?" He doesn't actually want to hear this, has less than no desire to listen to an autopsy report on this _thing_ he had with Cass, this thing he doesn't remember doing but can't tell himself he'd never do, because the smell of death fills the car with them. Cass is hauling the corpse of it everywhere he goes now, and if he's got to do that, the least Dean can do to shoulder his share is know about it.

Cass shrugs a little. It's old news to him, of course, all scar tissue by now. "Detroit happened. Lucifer happened. Losing Sam was more than -- than either of us knew what to do with, I guess. I started the painkillers and you...froze over, or whatever you want to call it. Quit taking care of your car. Quit wanting much of anything to do with me. It was like whatever ability you once had to feel something human...." He shakes his head instead of going on. What would really be the point of going on?

Quietly, his eyes on red tail-lights in the dark, Dean says, "But we stayed -- friends, it seems like."

"Oh, does it seem like that to you?" Cass snaps. His eyes are fixed straight ahead too, but only for a few seconds, before they flicker down to the bottle of pills that Dean had forgotten he was still holding.

"I don't know," Dean says. "I can't really figure you two out. Us two out." In any time period, it's starting to seem like.

He thought he had '09 Cass figured out, at least, but he's playing back a whole lot of tape in his head right now, wondering what he's already missed. If he already has missed it, or if there's still time to stop Cass, his Cass, from winding up here. From needing Dean so much that it makes him weak and...breakable.

"There's nothing to figure," says this other Cass, with his scruffy beard and his wide, white smile and his loopy lies about dragonfly perception and his devastating honesty about this tea party of the damned he's easing himself through, well-armed and well-numbed. "You're our Fearless Leader. Everyone left alive on Earth is following someone or something straight to Hell. I choose you."

"You shouldn't," Dean says. He's saying it to the wrong Cass, but maybe he needs the practice. "I don't think I'm any good for you."

"Heaven is cut off from Earth," he says matter-of-factly. Scar tissue, old and hard. "God stopped loving us a long, long time ago. There is no goodness, Dean. Nothing and no one is coming to save us. Fuck it, you were a disaster for me, a total cosmic trainwreck, but I still love you. Maybe that's the one goodness left in this dying world. _Omnia vincit amor_ , babe. _Omnia vincit_ fucking _amor_."

Dean has to look away, out his own window. He hasn't felt this lost since he made his peace with the whole Hell thing. He never thought living on Earth could make him feel the same way. "It's a one-way street," he makes himself say. "He'll never be loyal to you like you are to him."

"He never was." Dean can't hear any anger in Cass' voice at all. Nostalgia, if anything. "I never cared about that. Love's not some kind of contract, you read all the fine print and you sign if the terms are agreeable. It's just a job that needs doing, so you -- do it. Dean, I spat in the eye of God Himself for you. Do you think I expected to be rewarded for that? I expected to die. I expected to die a long time ago."

Dean can't speak. He can't even wrap his head around the scope and scale of what he's done to Cass. He used to wish he'd get a chance to know what it felt like to have someone love him, and the knowledge that he probably never would has been riding around with him, over his shoulder like a hitchhiker lurking in the back seat, for years now. It sucked, but he could cope -- well-armed and only mostly numbed.

He didn't know there was something worse. He didn't know it was _worse_ to carry around a love you didn't deserve.

In the future, Sam abandons him and Cass doesn't, and Dean honest to God doesn't know which one of them made a worse mistake.

"We're almost there," Cass says. "You should probably pull yourself together. Don't want to ruin your own reputation."

"It's not going to happen like this," Dean says. "When I get back, I'm going to find a way-- I'm going to change things."

Cass looks sideways at him, suspiciously. "Michael?"

"I don't know," he admits. "I don't -- think so. There's got to be another way, there's always more than one way to skin a cat. Right?"

"That's a very violent metaphor," Cass says, and it almost sounds like he should sound, like the weird alien nerd Dean wishes with everything he's got that Cass still was. "I'm so tired of all the blood, Dean. I'm just -- tired of it. I'm glad it's almost over. Don't go to Michael. I know," he adds with a glance at Dean, "I know that's not what Dean -- what my Dean told you. I know he thinks he's to blame for all this. I'd tell him otherwise, but he doesn't listen to me. But I'm telling you, the world ends either way. That was always the plan. You can't stop time, Dean. You can't keep the Earth alive when God wants it dead, no matter what you do, so -- don't let Heaven -- unmake you."

"At least I go out in a blaze of glory that way, right?" he says. "Giving up everything to bring the fight to the Devil's doorstep -- it is pretty metal. Is it really worse than turning into...?" _Your_ Dean, he thinks, but he can't say it. For a million reasons, he can't say that.

"I don't _want_ you to go out in a blaze of glory," Cass says, and the break in his voice is the first little bit of pain Cass has let show itself yet. The pills must not be doing their job. "I'm a shit guardian angel, but I have a _little_ bit of professional pride left."

Dean thinks he's trying to make a joke. Points for effort, he guesses. "The world ends either way," he repeats, turning it over in his head. Is it true? It doesn't feel true. There has to be a third option. And logically, it has to start with Sam, right? If it goes bad with Sam's epic fuck-up in Detroit, then fixing it has to start with saving him.

"Eventually," Cass says. He's gotten fidgety, the heel of his left hand jittering against the steering wheel, the wooden beads around his wrist clattering softly against the vinyl. He seems harder now, his voice dropping a little. Dean can see Cass-- no, he can see _Castiel_ in him. "But I want every damn day until then. The world ends and I follow you to Hell and we all die and it hurts so fucking much to be human, and I want to keep _every day_ I get with you, even the ones where you make me hate you, because -- because I don't want to give back the good ones. And because even the worst days are _my_ days. They're mine and I want them."

"I'm going to blow your timeline all to hell when I get back," Dean admits. "But I'm going to get you your days, Cass. I promise. And your wings back, and... I'm not going to give you any reason to hate me this time. I don't know what I was thinking, how things got so bad, but you -- deserve a guardian, too. Maybe I can save the world, maybe I can't, but I can save you."

Cass smiles sadly. "How? My mission wasn't to protect you, Dean; it was always to end you, and I can't love you and complete that at the same time. Michael tried to tell me all along, but I was arrogant; I didn't see because I didn't want to see. What are we supposed to do differently next time?"

"Build a better mousetrap." There has to be a way. He can save Sam, and after that everything changes. Somehow, it has to.

"Well," Cass says. "That sounds better than the cat thing, at least."

 

"We had an appointment," Cass says, which is a great line, but he doesn't say it like a _line_. He just says it, not because it's funny or awesome, but because it's true, and Dean's never been so happy in his life to be looking at a person with zero cool.

"Don't ever change," he says earnestly, and he puts his hand on Cass' shoulder without thinking about it.

Cass smiles at him. It's the first time he's seen Cass in a couple of weeks, face to face, and it's the first time he's seen Cass smile even a little bit since -- longer than that.

He wonders if Cass would've smiled after they kissed, if they'd kissed.

He lets go of Cass and reaches for his phone, only half listening to what Cass is asking him, because it's time to pull it together, focus up and prioritize. He's got work to do, and it starts with undoing what he did wrong last night. Hopefully Sam won't make him beg, but if push comes to shove, he'll suck it up and beg, because maybe when you have love and family the universe always finds a way to use it against you, but what other choice is there?

_Omnia vincit_ fucking _amor_.

"Come on," he tells Cass when he hangs up. "We got time for breakfast, and I need to eat a whole ham."

 

They find a diner that's just unlocking its doors and they get seated by the front window, right under the pink neon glow of the sign. Dean snags a mug full of crayons from the host stand and sets it by Cass, who obediently begins working through the word jumble on the placemat, and Dean thinks that the thing he actually loves most is that he _knew_ Cass would do that, that he likes to do that.

How many people has Dean ever had in his life long enough to learn something random like that? Dad. Sam. That's it, that's the list.

And now Cass, who's been coming around for a year or more, some days as mean and hungry as an alleycat, but...reliable. Loyal. Dean can hear Chuck's voice, laughing at him a little, saying _I don't think Cass is going anywhere_.

Too damn loyal. Dean needs to pull together a plan for that, too.

Cass orders a pot of Lemon Zinger tea. Dean orders corned beef hash with two sides of bacon.

"That's not ham," Cass tells him, probably because he thinks Dean's an idiot, which maybe he's not wrong about.

"Do you want to hear about the future or not?" Dean asks.

"I don't know," Cass says, frowning. "Prophecy can be misleading. Do you know the story of King Croesus?"

"Is it more interesting than the frigging zombie apocalypse?" Dean says. "I bet it's not."

"Twenty-six centuries ago, Croesus the king of Lydia approached the Oracle at Delphi to ask if he should wage war against the Persian Empire--"

"You don't even want to hear about the orgy?" Dean says, and that shuts him right up. He blinks and blinks, and Dean grins and starts in on his _way more interesting_ story.

He leaves a few details out, because they're his own personal business. Need-to-know basis, like his father used to say.

Cass drinks his tea, but by the end he's in need of the harder stuff, and starts poaching bacon off of Dean's plate. "And there were no angels?" he says at last. "Nowhere on Earth?"

"I don't think so." Dean catches the waitress' eye and signals for two more sides of bacon, if he's going to be sharing. "Nobody could raise 'em, at least."

"Troubling," Cass says, although that wasn't really the part that was pinging on Dean's trouble-meter. "Zachariah is not above lying to you," he warns. "You don't know that it was the future; he could easily construct a probable future from the sum of your own fears and expectations, the better to manipulate you with."

"Like a djinn. A reverse-djinn."

"Exactly like a djinn."

He hadn't really thought about that, so he takes his time thinking about it now. Sam saying yes to Lucifer: sure, yeah, Dean's already afraid of that. Bobby dying, of course. Himself turning into a heartless killing machine.... Yeah. Yeah, that's something that could have been lurking in the back of his mind for who knows how long. He's seen hunters lose their humanity, lose everything to the need for revenge -- hell, he's seen it happen in his own family. Even the fact that he was talking to Cass about the Colt like two seconds before the Colt pops up in his Bogus Journey seems a little hinkey, now that he's thinking about it.

Cass takes another piece of bacon, his face arranged in that weird blank that he lives in when he doesn't feel any immediate need to express anything.

"No," Dean says. "Parts of it were -- way too weird. Stuff I couldn't've thought up. And the fact that you told me not to go to Michael -- that had to be you, Zack would never let me hear that if he was controlling the vertical."

"Don't sell yourself short, Dean," Cass says with a little smile. "Maybe you have untapped creative potential."

"I'm not taking responsibility for Lizard King Cass," he says, which is funny because he is one thousand percent responsible, but that gets a little deeper into the stuff that Dean left on the cutting room floor, so Cass doesn't get the joke.

"I don't understand the reference," Cass says mildly. "This is really good." Just then the fresh bacon shows up, and Cass smiles up at the waitress and says with totally unself-conscious surprise, "Oh, she brought us more. That's nice, we wanted more."

"I'll get you more hot water, too," the waitress says, smiling straight at Cass and then at the floor like she's -- flirting -- like Cass is--

Fuckable. Which he is -- right? Dean squints at him, because this all came down the pike so fast that he didn't have time before to wonder _how_ the whole thing happened and _why_ , how junior high could've let Dean down so badly that he's maybe weeks away from going to bed with a dude he's not even sure he's attracted to.

Cass is -- okay looking. He's no Dr. Sexy -- way too short, for one thing -- but he has those blue eyes, those are good. And there's something Dean likes about his neck, which is longish and pale and sort of graceful, like a goose. Swan? Swan's more of a compliment, right? Anyway, it's not as obvious under the tie, but now that he's seen Cass with his collar undone, Dean thinks it's one of Cass' better features.

He has a nice smile, when he smiles. He seems to be smiling a lot today, by Cass standards.

Still, none of that really seems to add up to _I'd like to spend the next year of my life banging this, please_. He's never actually had that thought about any dude, even the ones he's occasionally noticed kinda have it going on, and he wishes he knew when to expect that part to kick in. Because it does kick in at some point, right? He wasn't _just_ banging Cass because Cass is stupid crazy about him and nobody else in the world gives a damn about Dean -- right?

"What's wrong with you?" Cass says.

"How much time do you have?" Dean says, because you can't lob a softball pitch like that and not expect Dean to swing for it. Cass rolls his eyes. "Nothing's wrong."

"Then don't stare at me," Cass says.

For some reason, that annoys the shit out of him. "You're sitting directly in front of me and stealing my food," he points out. "Where the hell would you like me to look?"

Very deliberately, Cass picks up the mug of crayons and sets it down on Dean's side of the table with a thunk.

"You're an idiot," Dean says, but they're done eating and Sam's ETA is still two and a half hours from now. Nobody needs their table and the waitress wants to fuck Cass, so they have a little latitude. Dean ends up drawing a pretty satisfactory Donald Duck on the back of his placemat while the sun comes up pink outside their window to meet the pink sign. It's quiet, except for the diner staff moving glasses and silverware around, grinding the coffee and grousing about the night shift's shoddy cleaning work. It's peaceful.

He shows Cass his picture, and Cass nods like it's okay but not too impressive, which, fair. Cass shows him the lines of Enochian he's written all over the mat, and when Dean asks him what it says, Cass won't tell him any more than, "Song lyrics."

Dean's not even sure if he's being fucked with or not.

"So what are you going to do?" Cass asks him when Dean signals it's time to move on by throwing his credit card (well, someone's credit card) on the tray. "To change the timeline."

"I already did it," Dean says. "I'm bringing Sam back in. He does stupid things when he's out there on his own."

"He might still--"

"He won't," Dean says shortly. "And no matter what, I said-- Other-Me said he hadn't talked to Sam in years. So I've already changed it." That one phone call saves Sam, saves the world, and incidentally it probably saves Dean and Cass' friendship, because once Sam gets here, Dean's not bored and lonely anymore and things go back to normal. Stay normal. Never go off the rails at all. One phone call, and he didn't even end up having to beg.

"Changed it in the details," Cass says. "You don't know if it has any impact on the larger-- "

"It's all details," Dean says. "Change enough days -- hell, minutes -- and before long it adds up to real money." Cass frowns and tilts his head on his gooseneck, and Dean explains impatiently, "Time, I mean time. Five years is just X number of individual days--"

"One thousand eight hundred and twenty-six," Cass says smugly. "2012 is a leap year."

It does not seem possible that Dean is going to have trouble _not_ having sex with this dork.

Well, more sex. Depending on whether or not you count -- two weeks ago. Which Dean doesn't, but Cass probably does, and it seemed like a jerk move to argue about it at the time. Was that where he fucked up? Should he have made it clearer that--

Should he not have done it at all? Was that the one day, one minute's worth of choice that it will always be too late to fix? He didn't know -- God, how could he have known? Cass is such a cold fish most of the time....

Cass is so clear in Dean's mind, bright and brittle, defeated by life but somehow free and easy about his terrible, terrible choices, saying _eager servant of the righteous man_ and _omnia vincit fucking amor_. Dean has no idea how far back it goes. He's not sure Cass knows -- this Cass, the one without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and the bitter wisdom that comes from getting your heart broken by someone who knows you back to front, inside and out.

"You're staring again," Cass says.

"And you're a bossy bitch," Dean says. "It's a free country, I'm allowed to look _forward_."

He's kind of obligated, actually.

 

 


	4. Abandon All Hope...

The drinking turns as serious as a heart attack after Cass brings everyone down, and soon enough Dean is the only halfway-sober person in the house. The girls go upstairs, and right after that Sam passes out on the couch, Bobby cashes it in right in his chair, and Dean hears the back door open and slam shut, which he guesses means Cass is wandering out back.

Drunk Cass milling around a salvage yard with his magic dial set to low sounds like a recipe for disaster, but Dean reminds himself that the dude is older than dirt and can handle himself. It'll be a miracle if any of them live long enough to die of tetanus.

Dean is just buzzed enough to feel wide awake and a little too buzzed to concentrate on anything useful, so he kicks around in Bobby's kitchen a little, pretending he gives a shit about the mess. He stacks up the dishes, at least, and wonders if he should take one more run in the morning at convincing Sam to help Bobby hold down the fort while the rest of them go to Missouri.

There's about a zero percent chance he'll get a different answer this time, but what other option does he have? Just give up and admit Sammy's more bullheaded than he is? Like hell.

He's got all the dishes set up by the sink, so he stands there for a minute and thinks about washing them. But then, you do the dishes after a party one time, and suddenly you're the guy everyone thinks does the dishes; be damned if Dean plans to be that guy at Bobby's house. If he's ever that guy, there better be a prospective mother-in-law in it for him.

He does put some stuff back in the refrigerator -- the last half of a ranch dip that someone was eating with potato chips, jelly from someone making sandwiches. Dean tries to remember who was eating what, and if he had anything to eat at all. It's just now one a.m. and the whole night's already getting blurry. Maybe he's drunker than he thought.

Dean's no princess, but Bobby's fridge is an affront to God and man. "Jesus, Bobby," he mutters out loud, "was this food at one point, or just plain witchcraft?" Some of it looks older than Bobby, and he unwisely opens one plastic margarine tub that contains something he's half-convinced is sprier than Bobby. He pitches that in the trash, and then he guesses he's the guy who cleans. He tells himself it's self-interest; if any of these hungover bastards open something accidentally in the morning, Dean's probably going to be the one sponging puke off the floor.

It only takes him ten or fifteen minutes to clear out the fridge of anything that's obviously hazardous waste, but he fills up the whole small trash can under the sink. Dean lugs the bag out back, pausing on the way to yank his coat from under his brother's dumb, shaggy, snoring head.

He'd forgotten all about Cass, and Cass is definitely more than capable of flitting off on some adventure of his own, maximum power or not. But there he still is, standing on top of a Plymouth Charger. He turns to look at Dean when Dean starts making noise among the metal trash cans. He gestures at the sky with the bottle in his hand and calls out, "Dean, have you seen the meteors?"

"Be careful up there," Dean shouts back, because he guesses he's the damn den mother tonight, too.

"It's the Leonid shower," Cass says. He takes an awkward, swaying step. "So named because the radiant is in the constellation-- "

He starts to totter again, and Dean snaps out with his best my-Dad-was-a-Marine voice, "Get your ass down from there, you're gonna get--" But then it's too late. Cass disappears from view abruptly.

Dean doesn't _run_ over, but he does kind of -- trot briskly. He finds Cass sitting on the ground, leaning against the Charger's empty wheel-well and cradling his bottle protectively close. "I almost fell," Cass says seriously.

"I wish you would've," Dean lies. "We could use a laugh around here." He offers Cass a hand up, and Cass takes it, but then latches onto Dean's wrist, too, and drags him down so they're both on the cold ground together, their backs against American steel. "It's too damn cold for stargazing," Dean complains.

"You are a whiner," Cass pronounces.

"No, I'm human and I'm sober," Dean says.

Cass smiles at him and says, "One of those problems I can fix."

He takes the bottle from Cass' hand and notices it's Bobby's good Scotch; Bobby's gonna have a shit-fit. He takes a long slug anyway. The mouth of the bottle is still warm from Cass' mouth.

Cass is still smiling at him, open and easy, and Dean wonders if it should make him a little anxious that he's getting so familiar with the difference between Cass' smile when he's sober and Cass' smile when he's high as a kite. "What?" he asks gruffly.

Cass smiles impossibly wider, and how long has he had that dimple in his chin? Has that always been there? " _You_ ," he says, stretching the word out like it's profoundly meaningful. "You -- struck out with Jo Harvelle."

"Oh, that's the metaphor you know," Dean grumbles. Of course it is. Cass reaches for the bottle again, and Dean holds it away at arm's length. "I think you've had plenty."

But taking away his drink just means that Cass has to amuse himself; Dean didn't think that through, or factor in how philosophical Cass seems to get when he's trashed. Cass watches him carefully, wheels turning, and then asks, "Do you love her?"

"Jo? No! Well...." It's a complicated question, right? And Dean shouldn't sell Cass short; he's plenty smart enough to make sense of a complicated answer, even like this. "I do -- care about her. She's my people, just like everyone here is. So that's...love. That's the kind of love I know something about, at least, the kind you have for...your people. But I don't love her like -- like you're thinking."

Cass does that hilarious thing that drunk people do where he draws himself up and tries to sound like he has it way more together than anyone else. " _You_ don't know what I'm thinking," he says. "You are a human; you do not have sp-" He stops and frowns, perturbed by his tongue's unwillingness to obey orders. "--special powers," he finishes carefully.

"You are actually not as mysterious as you think you are, my friend."

But he should've known Cass wouldn't be easy to shake off this line of conversation; he's like a damn terrier when he's trying to puzzle out some question about Dean. "So the only thing you wanted was -- physical release." Dean groans. "I just want to understand. Are there no local prostitutes? Wouldn't that be the safer option, given the presence of Jo's very protective and well-armed mother?"

"Not really my style."

He realizes too late he should've slid around that a little more deftly, because now Cass is looking at him keenly, all too alert. "Oh, so it was good enough for me, but not for you?"

Well, since they're being honest.... "Yup. Beggars can't be choosers."

"I was not _begging_ ," Cass says, and he just sounds so frigging stuck-up about it that Dean can't be responsible for his actions anymore.

"Funny, that's not how I remember it," he says, and then he leans just a little closer to Cass and gives him his best, breathiest, " _Dean, please_."

Cass elbows him hard, right in the ribs, and gives him a look that's about 85% pissed and 15% amused. Better than Dean expected, honestly. "Some days I think you are not very righteous at all," he says, sounding both pious and sad.

"Welcome to my every day, pal," Dean says. And then he figures after that he owes Cass, so he says, "Stop trying so hard. There's nothing that deep to understand about me, okay? This is just -- who I am, just what you see."

"I don't think you have any idea," Cass says softly, "what I see when I look at you."

Truer words were probably never spoken. Dean knows Cass is looking at him right now, but he doesn't look back, just keeps his face turned up toward the stars. He can't see any meteors, but he can see the gray veil of his own breath. "Everybody dies. Sooner or later, whether you know it's happening or not, you end up living your last night on earth. And one night isn't long enough to pack in a whole life, but if the only option you've got is -- physical release, at least that's more than nothing. Everybody deserves a chance to bang a few gongs before the lights go out."

He doesn't know where he heard that until he says it, and then suddenly he does know, and it throws him bad. It's like being caught in a loop, like opening a door and walking into the room you just left. If he says it because he heard Cass say it once, and then Cass will say it to Dean someday because he heard it from him, then that means nobody ever said it first, right? It's just...always been said, and that is _fucked the fuck up_ , and reminds Dean way too strongly of Lucifer telling him that anything he does ends up in the same place.

Which can't be true, right? Because he's changed things already. He has the Colt that it took him five years to get his hands on last time -- next time -- the other time. That _has_ to change things. Sam being with him has to change things. This isn't an endless loop; there are doors here, real doors that lead to places he's never been before.

But if that's true, then -- who said the thing about the gongs, Cass or Dean?

And way more importantly, when the doors open and they all walk through them together, are they really _going_ anywhere at all? Sam's inside sawing logs on Bobby's couch, and Dean thought that would be enough to change things, but what if it's just a detail? What if the big things always happen the same way no matter how you rearrange the deck chairs, what if--

What if 2014 will always happen because it already has happened?

Cass is looking at him with those big blue eyes, and Dean is only human and has no special powers, but he knows, he absolutely knows for sure, that tonight is where it starts -- where it started -- where it will start. Cass is going to try to kiss him again, because he's drunk and still all spun up over Dean; Dean is still lonely, has been lonely forever; it's dark and cold out here and Cass is warm against his side. He's going to go for it, and Dean is going to let him.

He'll tell himself it's nothing. It's the last night of the world. It's just a way to make a little noise, to let them both know they're still here for at least one more night. He'll tell himself that sometimes you gotta set a few fires if you wanna keep the darkness away.

He'll take Cass by the hand and lead him inside, upstairs, spread him out on one of those never-used beds. He'll undo the sloppy knot in Cass' tie, peel his coat and jacket off and crack him out of the rest of it one button at a time, drawing everything out slow so that Cass has time to want him to go faster, then to ask him to, then to plead.

He'll break Cass into fucking _pieces_ , fuck him so deep and dirty that the burn marks never fade away. He won't stop until Cass is calling out his name over and over again; he won't even stop after that, just sink his fingers into Cass' mouth to shut him up, and Cass will moan around them and pull Dean in deeper.

Dean can see the whole thing, feel every minute of it like it's already happened -- sweat under his hands and in his eyes and the smell of Glenmorangie and Cass' ragged voice telling him _yes, yes, yes_ when it seems like the whole world has been telling him _no, and also, fuck you_ for more or less his whole life.

It's already happened. He knows it has.

He's shivering, and he doesn't know if it's November in South Dakota, or if it's Fate breathing down his neck. Cass is looking at him with concern now, and that's not exactly a turn-on, but it doesn't seem to matter.

It's already happened. And when it happened, it started tonight, so tonight is when it starts, and it ends with him using Cass up and throwing him away, and even though Dean knows that, he _wants_ it.

"Dean?" Cass says. He puts a hand on Dean's knee -- not even in a sexy way, but like he's trying to be helpful. It's not helpful.

He pushes Cass' hand away and hauls himself to his feet. "It's fucking freezing out here," he says.

He makes it all the way inside the door before he has to stop, leaning against the hall wall, trying to scrub the images out of his eyeballs with the heels of his hands. He can't get his breathing steady. He can't pull himself under control. He had to drive himself so damn hard to get even this far, and he knows it's not over yet, he's not at all home free.

If Cass comes through the door right now -- if they end up pushed close together here in this small, dark space, right by the stairs to the bedrooms --

If Cass puts a hand on him again and says _Dean, are you all right?_ \-- or _Dean, why did you run away?_ \-- or _Dean, don't be afraid of this...._

Then it means that there's no changing it, no changing any of it, because even with everything he knows, he is absolutely going to make this enormous, all-encompassing mistake that blows apart Cass' life and costs Dean the friendship of one of the five people in the world he knows how to love. It means free will is a lie and his brother is dead already, and half the world with him. If Dean knows everything he knows and he still can't put the brakes on this thing between him and Cass, then doesn't that mean Dean knows nothing, and nothing he does matters at all?

If Cass follows him inside -- if he doesn't even say anything, just comes in and looks right at Dean, seeing God knows what with those endless blue eyes -- if he lets Dean put an arm around him and he comes closer, presses against Dean and strokes his hair and just breathes with him, just stays with him -- if he follows Dean into this hallway and then on into Hell just because Dean's the one he chooses --

But he doesn't.

Eventually Dean stops waiting for it. He just goes back into the living room, steals a cushion from behind Sam, and gets a little sleep on the floor before it's time to load his family up in the car and start driving straight toward the Devil.

 


	5. My Bloody Valentine

"What I don't understand is, where is your hunger, Dean?" It's something to pass the time, that's all. To distract Castiel, he hopes, from too much awareness of the empty bag in his lap, the scent of meat that only whets his unnatural hunger.

It's not really a request for insight into Dean Winchester, because Castiel has mostly given up on the idea that he'll ever have that.

Dean makes a small noise of puzzlement, and Castiel says, "Well, slowly but surely, everyone in this town is falling prey to Famine. But so far you seem unaffected."

"Hey, when I want to drink, I drink," Dean says, and it's as Castiel suspected. If there's one person on the Earth plane who understands Dean less well than Castiel does, it's Dean. If Castiel really cares about this answer, he should be asking Sam instead. "When I want sex, I go get it. Same goes for a sandwich or a fight."

"So you're saying you're just...well-adjusted?"

"God, no." Dean laughs a little as he says it, and maybe Castiel hasn't given him enough credit for self-awareness after all. "I'm just well-fed."

"That makes a certain amount of sense," Castiel admits. "Any wholesome hunger exists to be sated, and Famine can't change that."

Dean glances over at him. "What do you mean?"

"Have you noticed that no one is choking on avocados, or hydrating themselves to death? He has power only over the darkest appetites."

Dean drums his fingers restlessly against the steering wheel. He's bored and Castiel is hungry. Castiel hopes Famine carries out his work efficiently, because this does not have the makings of a successful long-term stakeout. "Well, what about our Romeos and Juliets?" Dean asks. "Those match-made-in-Heaven kids. What about love?"

"Don't be a child," Castiel says, perhaps too sharply. "Those people weren't in love."

"Pretty sure Cupid-- "

"Now would be a good time to learn your lesson about trusting strange angels," Castiel says. "Cherubim can believe whatever they like about their mission, but they are tasked with shackling one human to another for purposes entirely outside the understanding of everyone involved."

"Last of the true romantics, aren't you?" Dean says.

Castiel looks down at his vessel's hand and knows what it felt like to have soft golden curls coiled around its fingers, knows the most finely calculated geometry of Amelia Novak's smile, knows how cold her toes were against the ankles of this vessel in the night. What does Castiel know of romance? Only what he's borrowed, as he is borrowing the taste of red meat in his mouth.

It's still not less than what Dean knows on the topic, he suspects.

"Perhaps my knowledge of love lacks nuance," he says, "but I have a solid grasp of the fundamentals. I know that it motivates you to sacrifice yourself, not to devour another."

"Yeah, maybe," says Dean, who perhaps knows less than Castiel about romantic love, but far more about sacrifice. "Wait, so my hungers are wholesome, but Jimmy's cheeseburger thing is like a sin or something? That's a reach."

"It's not the hunger itself that makes the difference -- food or sex or even the experience of inebriation, those are essentially neutral, neither corrupting nor ennobling. It's the relationship you have to them that makes them sins." Dean is looking at him now as if Castiel is being extremely confusing. That's worrisome. "This is very basic information about divine virtue, does no one teach humans these things?" That would explain a lot about Earth, actually.

"Guess I skipped Sunday school the week they covered divine virtue," Dean says.

Well, it's never too late, Castiel supposes. "Lust and gluttony aren't just hungers, they're hungers that can't be sated; that's how they corrupt and destroy you, by endlessly promising a future pleasure they themselves cannot deliver."

Dean sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Okay. Like I'm five, this time."

Perhaps a different approach is called for. "When you take a woman to your bed, what are you hoping to achieve?" he asks.

"Umm..." Now Dean looks keenly suspicious.

Castiel rolls his eyes. "Is it an orgasm?"

"What is this, confession?" Dean snaps. "Yeah, I guess it's an orgasm."

"That's achievable, a natural and normal consequence of sex; there's nothing particularly damning about it."

Castiel would've thought that would be reassuring to someone like Dean, but if anything, he looks increasingly suspicious. "Wait, what about iniquity or whatever?"

"It's _iniquitous_ ," Castiel explains, "when you pursue sex as a conquest of one person over another, as a display of your acquisitive power, as something that validates your worth or substantiates your feelings of worthlessness. Sex was not meant to bear the weight of your soul's deepest needs."

"This has taken a very weird turn," Dean says. Castiel doesn't understand what's weird about any of it. He's _agreeing_ , in essence, with what Dean himself said only moments ago about the proper and well-balanced feeding of hungers. This is why Dean is so confusing; you try to agree with him, and he fights you every step of the way. "You're saying that NSA is God's favorite kind of sex because it's honest?"

"I don't understand the connection between sex and the National Security Agency," Castiel says, "but yes, God does favor honesty, and the desire for an orgasm is the simplest, though not the only, honest hunger that humans can fill through sex. In some contexts, sex can fill the need to create and maintain intimate bonds, but not between the near-strangers we have been seeing among Famine's victims. Even those who are cherub-touched are, in the end, chasing an induced chemical high, not laying the foundations for a lifelong pair-bond. I believe that when the smoke clears, we will find few if any stable, committed, loving partners who have done themselves harm through lust."

Dean doesn't disagree with him, which generally means that Dean agrees. "So you're saying it's true what they say about sex after marriage," he says in the light tone he uses to divert the flow of an overly serious conversation.

"I can't speak for the institution of marriage in general," Castiel says, "but I distinctly remember saying that sex can play a crucial role in a strong relationship, that it forges intimacy between lovers. For example, Jimmy and Amelia Novak had regular and mutually satisfying intercourse-- "

Dean barks his most cynical laugh. "Livin' the fucking dream."

It irritates Castiel. Dean is always so quick to announce an opinion on things he can't possibly understand. "But it wasn't a dream; it was the truth, and the truth can't be made to hurt you. It is of the very substance of God."

"Oh, well, if it's of _God_ ," Dean says sourly. "A dude who's famous for not hurting people. Checks out." Someone should argue with him, but it isn't going to be Castiel. He's too compromised to do a lecture on theodicy any justice right now. "But okay, tell me about the cheeseburgers. What's so dark about those, Satan loves cholesterol?"

"Well...yes?" Castiel doesn't often disturb the surface of the deep well that holds Jimmy Novak's memories, but this time it's Jimmy who is, all unwittingly, disturbing Castiel. The waters churn higher with every juicy piece of meat he consumes, flooding the carefully maintained levees between angel and vessel.

It takes no effort at all to close his eyes and let himself sink.

"Jimmy Novak has no conscious memory of his mother," he says. This is as close to a dream-state as Castiel is capable of achieving, more visceral than visiting another human's dreamscape, even Dean's. His voice sounds strange and distant to his own ears. "She was depressed after his birth and took her own life when he was six months old." He feels Dean jolt a little and shift in his seat to look more carefully at Castiel. "His father was a rough man in many ways, but devoted and kind. He was large and loud. He ate and smoked and drank copiously. He had a booming laugh and a crushing hug. Jimmy was nothing like him. Perhaps they did not understand each other well, but they were fiercely close and loyal. His heart failed when Jimmy was thirteen years old. His death shattered everything, Jimmy's entire world."

Somewhere, Dean is saying his name in a soft, anxious tone. "I'm all right," Castiel murmurs. "I want you to understand." Dean nods and gives him the silence he needs to submerge himself again, as deep as before Dean's voice called him back. Deeper.

"He was taken in by his father's sister. She was not kind. She provided for him, but he burdened her. She adhered to a particularly severe traditionalist Catholic sect, and both her church and the parochial school in which she enrolled Jimmy were different from church and school as he had known them, and just as intimidating to him as his new home was. In the midst of his grief, he was plunged into a demanding world full of martyrs and commandments. He struggled. He was a naturally obedient and sweet-tempered boy, but he found his emotions difficult to manage during those years. He feared his aunt and her God, and he believed that his suffering was somehow a test designed to earn their love. He became consumed with the fear that his mother was, as his aunt believed, burning in Hell. By the time he graduated high school and left for college, he was thin and fragile, uncomfortable in his skin, caught in the grip of an anxiety disorder he would battle off and on for the rest of his life. He planned to enter the priesthood to atone for what he perceived to be his family's sins.

"In college, he began to attend a non-denominational Christian youth group. At first he didn't know what to make of them -- so many happy, laughing people who were in a hurry to grow into their hopeful futures. There were noisy meals and noisy movie nights, Frisbee teams and hugs and so much music. He met a girl in the group named Amelia Hughes. She played the guitar, and she chose to befriend him even though he was desperately shy and out of place -- because he was, really. She introduced him to her major adviser, a psychology professor who was also an ordained minister, and he became Jimmy's advocate, helping him find qualified counselors for his anxiety and spending many long hours offering spiritual guidance out of nothing more than kindness. The world began to open up. Jimmy could breathe. He could imagine a future that wasn't dominated by the ghosts of his family and the violence of God. He changed his major from theology to English. He cut off contact with his aunt and began to support himself, spending his holidays and vacations with the Hughes family. He was re-baptized in their Protestant church and the same weekend proposed marriage to Amelia. A happy ending.

"But it's never so simple, is it? In spite of all the changes, he never slept easily, and when he did sleep, he would often have the same nightmare of his mother in Hell. He wanted to write fiction, but any time he tried, the stories would turn dark and sometimes violent; he couldn't imagine letting even Amelia read them, let alone his pastor and his in-laws, so he deleted everything he wrote. He benefited greatly from therapy, but he was never able to broach the subject of his father; he was afraid that if he ever began grieving that loss, he would never fully recover the happiness he'd managed to create for himself, so the crack in the world that opened up when he was thirteen followed behind him always. He delayed beginning a family out of the irrational fear of a mark on his family, a curse in his blood, but he was incapable of denying Amelia any happiness, so at last he agreed. Becoming a father gave him joy as untainted by shadows and fear as any he had ever known, but as pure and holy as he knew the bond that held him to Claire was, the very intensity of his love fed his anxiety. He battled persistent, intrusive thoughts of dying young, of abandoning Claire as his father had abandoned him. Asserting control over his own health was the only way he knew to give himself ease, so he gave up even the very casual social alcohol he had once indulged in, began to jog, and held himself to a heart-healthy diet with a grim severity his aunt would have approved of. There were occasional lapses in the first year, but he perfected his routines and honed his will. At last he told himself that he had conquered even the cravings, that when he thought of red meat it meant nothing but death to him, and worse than death, failure to break the family curse."

Castiel blinks. His vessel's eyes focus -- his eyes focus -- on the dashboard in front of him, on streetlights and sidewalk and coat and tie and stars and Dean, on the Earth that is his mission field and that he is, at last, beginning to know through more than borrowed memories. He stretches in his seat and lets himself break the surface of memory and breathe the present again. "Famine seeks out and preys upon such histories of privation and fear," he says.

"Yeah," Dean says, and he sounds a little unsteady himself, as if he has also been treading deep waters. Perhaps he has. Castiel likes to think of himself as Dean's guardian angel, but it's Dean who can't help going in over his head after a friend. "Man. The dude seemed so normal."

"He was. He is. Normal isn't what you think it is, Dean. There's a portal to Hell in every human heart, just as much as to Heaven."

Instead of responding to that directly, Dean says, "I didn't know you could do that. See all that stuff about ol' Jimmy."

"When I want to," Castiel admits. It feels shameful, knowing Dean's position on invasions of privacy, but Dean seems more curious than disapproving. "Memory is held in the body, after all." Castiel thinks about saying more, about telling Dean that he doesn't see these things like a television flashing images in front of him, but feels the experiences undulating through this body -- feelings of elation and safety, of dread and loneliness, the ache of guilt and the awe of loving and having love returned in kind. He can describe them because they saturate him, or because he saturates the body that knits itself up around his grace, sustaining his consciousness and identity. He thinks about it, but he chooses not to.

He doesn't often leaf through the book of Jimmy Novak's life, and only part of that is because he respects Jimmy's privacy. He can't do it without blurring the boundaries between them, and each surrender to his own curiosity leaves him more deeply wed to Jimmy, more obligated. Right now he feels tangled and vulnerable, exposed to this realm and its delights and its suffering just as surely as Jimmy's most tightly held secrets are exposed to Castiel's gaze.

"It's often wiser to let the past alone," he says. He feels as if he's speaking slowly and with some effort. He thought he had come back into the shallows, but the tide still moves through him, and somewhere below the water has grown cold, a hostile chasm opening its waiting mouth. Castiel touches his throat. Is he still speaking? Is this his mouth, his voice, his words? "When it doesn't belong to.... Memories, especially intensely emotional memories, are...."

What is it that belongs to Castiel? His grace, his power? His mission? His memories?

"...often distracting...often best left...."

He knows that something is his, and that he is without it. There's an emptiness that should be full, a hunger where there should be...something....

Dean's voice reaches him from the world on the other side of the car. "Are we talking about that thing we're not talking about?" he asks.

"By definition, no," Castiel says. The brief exercise of logic is bracing. He feels anchored to Earth again, a little. "What thing?"

"The thing in Maine a few months ago," Dean says.

Castiel smooths the empty paper bag flat over his thigh. It still smells like meat, and he is still so damnably hungry. It's hard to focus his thoughts, but he does trail his fingers through the water and call the memory to him. "When you let me pretend to be an FBI agent with you?"

It's the wrong answer, it seems. "Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Dean growls.

Castiel tugs on the line, reeling more memories toward him. He's spilled so many somehow, let them scatter away in all directions. Too many to chase at once, but he can follow this trail -- Maine and Raphael, the police station and the hospital and the fire and the moonlight and-- "Oh, you mean after that," Castiel says, "when we had sex."

**"** _Are you fucking kidding me right now?"_

"You seem -- are you angry at me?" Castiel hazards.

Dean grips the steering wheel firmly and begins to knock his forehead against the space framed between his hands. It's troubling behavior, given how much self-mutilation they have seen on this case, but he seems to be exercising due caution. "I have been kicking the crap out of myself for months, thinking that I turned you into some kind of sex pervert, and you don't even _remember_ it."

That seems bizarre at best to Castiel. "You think I'm -- a sex pervert?"

"Not now! In the future, when I was in the future and you were--"

The issue is beginning to be more clear. Dean has always been, in Castiel's opinion, unduly fixed on the specific issue of Castiel's future Fall. His concern is objectively disproportionate, relative to the concern he's expressed for the many victims of the Croatoan plague and subsequent disasters, but Castiel can't fully disapprove. It's flattering. "Oh, I see. No, Dean, you shouldn't blame yourself for that; whatever difficulties I encountered in my transition to human life, I'm sure they were unrelated to an orgasm I had in Maine years before."

In a sour tone that isn't flattering in the slightest, Dean says, "That's pretty frigging rational for a guy who's just inhaled a year's worth of junk food in one sitting."

Castiel looks down at his empty bag again and feels his stomach rumble. "It took me all day, it's hardly one-- Why are you still angry with me, what did I do?"

"Nothing," Dean says with heavy finality. "You didn't do anything. Obviously neither of us did anything worth the effort."

"Are you -- disappointed?" Dean twitches a little. Castiel makes no claim to understand Dean, but he has been observing him for years now, and he knows the little tells that Dean gives off when he wants out of a conversation but fears the loss of face he thinks comes with admitting it. "You are," Castiel says, amazed and...perhaps angry himself. "You're disappointed that I didn't take your rejection harder than I did."

"My rejection?"

No doubt about it now. Anger flares hot and then cold through Castiel's vessel, because how dare this man, who thinks he knows everything and has an answer for everything and passes judgment easily and volubly on everything Castiel does and says -- how _dare_ he sound confused now? "You told me not to 'make it weird!''  He settles for gouging quotes in the air, in lieu of in Dean Winchester's eyeballs. "You all but ordered me to forget it ever happened, so I _did_ **,** and now you can't tolerate the slight to your vanity!"

"I never told you to forget it ever happened!"

"No, but you didn't want anything to change. I'm not omnipotent, Dean, there's only so much I--"

Forgetting was demanded of Castiel, and he did his best to comply. He can't control his own mind perfectly, but he knows how to close something away, how to store it for safekeeping.

_Emotional memories are often best left_

Obedience is demanded and desired....

Something is broken now, some barrier Castiel scarcely remembers building, but as it crumbles he sees what purpose it served. He remembers the sensation of Falling, remembers it in his consciousness and also in this body that knows greed and grasping, that knows hunger. He can't hold onto all of this, can't tolerate it and doesn't want it.

It will all be taken away from Castiel soon enough. Sooner is better.

"These memories are a privilege." Castiel says the words, feels them in his mouth, but they are not his words. He can almost hear a different voice vibrating underneath his own -- a female voice, glacier and chrome and terrible judgment. "They can and will be taken from you if you continue to..."

He doesn't remember what comes next, and he exhales sharply with relief. The last thing he wants is to remember.

"Uhhh...Cass?" For once Dean doesn't sound flippant or disapproving. So that's something.

"What do you want from me?" These words, Castiel knows, are his own. He's thought them a thousand times or more. "I was only trying to obey you."

"Well, I don't want you to obey me!"

"That doesn't make any sense!"

If he'd only make _sense_ , Castiel could serve him, could save him, could do something right for once. He knows none of that will ever happen, and he struggles almost daily to make peace with that knowledge.

"I'm human, Cass, I'm not God. Sometimes I want shitty things, sometimes I'm stupid, sometimes I'm just wrong. The last thing I need in my life is a friend I can't trust to call me on it when I'm fucking things up."

It's an answer, of a kind. Dean isn't intentionally impenetrable, Castiel knows, and so he tries to hold back his half-justified anger and make his point through reason instead. "You don't understand. You're human, but I'm not. I'm an angel, and an angel is obedient. An angel serves a greater purpose."

"I'm not your greater purpose, I'm your _friend_."

It's kindly meant, but it only widens the gap between them, because from Dean's perspective it means so much. He can't possibly comprehend how small a thing it is on the cosmic scale. Dean is offering a child's treasure and asking for all of Creation and Castiel's immortality in return. "No, Dean," he says softly, "you're my mission. I can't be your friend, I can't feel these human things, I'm not capable of it."

But that's not true. Not in this state, at least, torn open and flooded by the memories that belong to this body where Castiel is an invader -- memories of falling in love, of holding and touching and seeing and tasting. He should never have joined so deeply -- never have stayed so long -- never have become so compromised. Human. Both.

He can hear the voice again. _You again, Castiel? It's always you; you require as many repairs as ten ordinary angels._

_Wait, wait, Naomi, you don't know the whole truth, please just listen to me..._

_I've heard all I want to hear from you, and far more._

It has the texture and the dimensions of a memory, but he doesn't know anyone named Naomi.

Castiel is hungry -- starving, in fact. His body is screaming at him-- This body -- his body -- it wants him--

Not to forget....

The sight of Dean in Hell, charred and mummified in smoke and savagery, and the longing for home that shone through his dark surface like topaz and amber. He was so beautiful, made entirely of a transcendent beauty that instantly stole every imagined moment of triumph Castiel had ever spun out to sustain him through the fight, replacing it with such humility and awe, such faithful certainty that Creation must live forever, because only eternity could contain the gratitude he owed the God who made Castiel for this.

When did he forget that feeling? How was it possible -- the defining moment of Castiel's life, how could he --

_You again, Castiel?_

_I told Michael--_

_Hold still._

The sight of Dean in autumnal moonlight that passed diffusely through a filthy window in an abandoned house in Maine. His smile, conferring secret knowledge, conducting an initiation. The moment Castiel thought he might be allowed to kiss....

_Correct yourself, Castiel. Obedience, and only obedience_

_I told Michael you were in no--_

_These memories are a privilege, they can and will be--_

He grabs at Dean's coat in a panic, overwhelmed by voices, by names and faces he shouldn't know, by anger and regret and bitterness that feel ancient to him although he's never felt these emotions before he had to follow Dean Winchester to Hell and back. "They can take you," he says desperately, "they can take my memory of you, when they don't think they can use me anymore, they'll take everything--"

Dean catches hold of his hands and pries them loose, but instead of pushing Castiel's hands away, he grips them tightly and doesn't let go. He's strong for a human. Castiel is all too aware what that is and is not worth. "That's not gonna happen," Dean says. "I won't let that happen." It's easy to believe Dean, when he wants to be believed.

It's happened before, with no one there to stop it. No friend to come to Castiel's defense. If Castiel has a friend now, does that change the balance of power?

_I told Michael you were in no fit condition -- after all my work -- barely held together -- ever more erratic as you grow stronger --_

The voice is fading, the water closing over him.

When Castiel opens his eyes, Dean looks worried. It's understandable; even Castiel knows his behavior has been erratic recently. He isn't entirely sure why....

Maybe he isn't meant to know.

"You okay, buddy?" Dean asks, releasing Castiel's hands.

"Yes," Castiel says. "Just hungry."

 

 


	6. Point of No Return

 

The future of all humanity and the fate of his brother's soul should be all Dean has room on his plate for, and it just really gets under his skin that he has the ever-changing state of Cass' emotions to worry about, too. So Cass is pissed at him, so the fuck what? Everyone is pissed at Dean, because there's no way to win with the hand Dean's been dealt.

He's been a selfish dick his whole life, or so people keep telling him -- right up until the minute he tries to put a planet full of strangers ahead of his own family and his own life, and then somehow everyone's _madder than they were before_. It's some bullshit, and if he had time to fight about it, he'd fight every single one of them.

There's only one fight that matters now, though, and it's not with Sam, it's not with Bobby, it's not with God, and it's sure as hell not with Cass. Even though Cass is probably madder at Dean than the other three combined, and fuck if it doesn't feel tempting to throw down with someone who's willing to lay off all the passive-aggressive crap and just fucking _fight_ him. That sounds really good about now.

Or at least it sounds good right up until Cass throws him up against a brick wall, because, oh yeah, Dean kinda forgot that the whole point of Cass is to be a straight-up monster in a fight.

"I rebelled for this?" he roars at Dean, and then punches him twice in a row, which is twice as many hits as it takes to make Dean regret he ever even thought about wanting to go toe-to-toe with Cass. "So that you could surrender to them?"

Dean's head is ringing, but he manages to throw his weight forward. It's enough to push Cass off balance a little, but it only takes Cass a second to recover, and he uses the force of Dean's motion to wheel him around and slam him into the opposite wall. It's basically over then; Dean gets punched once in the stomach, once more in the face, and slung around so his spine meets the bricks again, not necessarily in that order, and he's been beat worse, but that just means he knows his limits. "Cass, please," he says, because pride's all well and good, but he's about done for if he wants to walk out of this alley under his own power.

Cass hates him like poison right now, but he kinda loves Dean, too. Dean's pretty sure Cass isn't actually going to break him in half.

Like 85, 90% sure.

"I gave everything for you," Cass snarls at him, so close Dean can smell the adrenaline coming off of him, and Dean is -- 65, 70% sure he's not about to die in this alley.

Somehow, though, the very real thought that Cass might drag him back home in ten separate pieces spikes Dean's anger even faster than his fear, and his rational brain is down with the _let's beg the nice man for our life_ plan, but what actually comes out of his mouth is, "Well, who asked you to?" It throws Cass for a second; he doesn't actually back down, but his hand loosens its choking grip on Dean's collar, and that emboldens Dean to say, "You gave me too much, I didn't ask for this. One half-assed handjob and now you think I'm the goddamn meaning of life-- "

Yeah, maybe a little too bold, now that he thinks about it. "Shut up," Cass bites out, but he doesn't bash Dean's head open, so yeah, Dean's not doing that. In life, Dean has two and only two moves: punching his way out of a problem or talking his way out, which means that right now he has one move.

"It's too much, Cass!" Usually when he talks his way out of trouble it's just a barrage of bullshit and distraction, but this is not his usual brand of trouble. This calls for the big guns, the actual truth. "Don't put all this on me, you made your choice. No one else."

"You think this is about your stupid orgasm?"

And no, not really. At one point Dean might've made that mistake, but he's gotten to know Cass pretty well. Cass is a lot more complicated than that. He's a lot more complicated, Dean thinks, than Cass himself knows he is, which is probably why he gets confused so easily. "I think you hate me like I'm someone you used to love," Dean says, tasting blood. "I think right now, you hate me like you hate God."

Cass does back off. Only an inch or two, but Dean thinks it means he's allowed to keep breathing, probably. He still looks fucking furious, but he looks a little bit lost, too. "You're going to kill the world, of your own free will," he says. "How can I forgive you for that?"

Dean's getting so sick of hearing that. Everybody he talks to has a different story to tell him about how the whole world is going to die, and the only thing every version has in common is that it's all Dean's fault. "I'm going to kill the world? Cass, I'm going to save it! Michael thinks so, and the angels, and God. You're the one who made me swear that I'd serve Heaven, so why am I in this by myself all of a sudden, where the fuck did you go?"

And that's the thing, isn't it? Cass was supposed to be the one who'd never in a million years leave Dean on his own ( _I don't think Cass is going anywhere_ , said a Prophet of God one time in the future, smiling like the very idea had to be a joke). Now he's standing here less than three inches from Dean's nose, but Dean still has to walk himself into Michael's meat grinder, all under his own steam, and all alone.

Maybe right now, Dean hates Cass like he hates God, too. Dean's not a child and he doesn't believe anyone gets what they deserve, but they lie to you all your life, they tell you you're not alone in the world, and it -- sucks. It makes you want things that don't even exist, like peace and fairness and unconditional love.

Cass lifts his hand and touches Dean's lip, which he didn't even realize was busted open until then. Dean shudders with how weird the sensation is, the tip of Cass' finger sliding against this raw, torn spot, pain and exposure and an unfamiliar, intimate thrill snaking up Dean's spine all at once. He realizes all of a sudden how -- vulnerable he is, how Cass overpowered him and carved right into him without expending the slightest effort, how he's alone in this seedy alley with someone who wants to punish Dean almost as much as he wants to possess him, how what Dean wants wouldn't necessarily matter right now, even if he knew what he wanted. How probably the only thing protecting him is that Cass isn't so sure what he wants, either.

Dean can feel the slickness of the blood as Cass' finger smears it across his lip, and an image flashes through his head -- Sam with his shocked and guilty eyes above his bloodstained mouth. This is a bonding experience Dean could've done without, he thinks, and then two neurons suddenly fire together like when he's solving a case, when the connection lights up so bright he's amazed he ever missed it. "Holy shit," he says. "You're Ruby."

"What?" Cass says blankly.

But no, no, Dean sees it now, he's got it. "Of course, of course. Michael and Lucifer play for different teams, but they're still brothers. That means they think alike, it means they _fight_ alike. When Lucifer thought Sam wasn't going to play ball, he sent Ruby to steer him in the right direction -- a hot chick with phenomenal cosmic power literally flowing through her veins and a sob story about how she wanted to be a real girl again. Ruby wasn't an accident, she was custom-built to get under Sammy's skin. Michael sent you. And angels aren't seduction pros like demons are, so you're a little off." Cass scowls, and right, maybe this isn't the moment to focus on that part. "But he still -- he picked you because -- you have a heart and the others don't. Because you're -- funny and snarky and sweet and a badass and -- and you would never abandon me. He custom-built you, or at least picked you out special. I like you because I'm supposed to like you." Either it's news to Cass, too, or he's a way better actor than Dean thinks he is, because if Dean had any doubts about his theory, watching Cass take it in and digest it would put them to rest. "It's all still Michael pulling on my strings," Dean says, the anger building in him, rising up into his throat to choke him. "From the day my fucking parents met to the day you showed up in Hell to save me, everything is Michael."

He hates Michael and always has, but now it's a different kind of hate, shoved up into his heart and broken off there like the tip of a cheap blade. Michael is the reason Dean can't even trust -- whatever this is. This mysterious way that Cass sees him. This thing Dean feels in the pit of his stomach when he thinks about Cass that scares the shit out of him. It would always be scary, yeah, but it should be scary because it's new and fragile and unpredictable. The nameless thing that's happening here shouldn't be safe, but it should be pure, like a sunrise coming up over the horizon on the last morning of the world. Instead it's tainted like everything is tainted, with Heavenly deception and control. It's just one more hook that was threaded through Dean to cause him pain if he struggled, because he guesses that's what Michael thinks love is all about.

"Not everything," Cass says, and he still looks pretty damn mad, but Dean thinks maybe not at him this time. "Not you. You are not for him."

Yes, it's fucked up to feel a little woozy over the guy who just punched him three times in the face, but what's not fucked up lately? When Dean thinks of living a happy life, he thinks of Lisa, but when he thinks of a total cosmic trainwreck, the kind of love that keeps on burning you to ash after the whole world has gone dark, who could he think of but Cass?

"He knew I'd like you," Dean says softly, "but he didn't know you'd like me, did he?"

"Obedience is demanded..." Cass says in that creepy voice Dean's heard before, like something's short-circuiting in him, or like he's being hijacked. "Beware of these urges of the... these memories are a privilege...."

Dean has just enough room to get his arms up, to take Cass's face between his hands. Cass feels so human, warm skin and uneven stubble and the tiny muscles that twitch when his eyes dart around. He feels so real, like something that's really possible, even though everything Dean knows about the world screams at him that he had his shot and didn't take it, and that second chances don't exist. "When they took you back, they didn't just lean on you, did they? They fucked with your head -- your memory -- tried to reprogram you. Because you weren't getting the job done." Because Dean wasn't playing his role, and Cass was trying to help him when he was supposed to be jerking the leash.

"I think it happened more than once," Cass says, almost like he feels guilty over it. Goddamn Michael. Goddamn God. "They didn't dare take too much; you might have noticed something wrong. But I don't know, I don't know exactly what they did, or how many times they've done it before. And when you're gone, I don't know if they'll keep doing it, or-- I think I would prefer the pit, if I have any say in the matter. At least there I'll surely be allowed to keep the memories, if only so I'll...continue to miss you...."

"Dammit, Cass," Dean says. "You shouldn't have done this. You knew neither of us could fight Michael forever, why did you do all this for nothing?"

Okay, so they have a connection, they have -- feelings or whatever you want to call it, but Cass is forever going on about his stupid mission, and he should've -- just _done_ it, just sobered up and done the job. It might have saved them at least a little time. It might've saved some lives. Isn't that what matters, at the end of the day?

"I didn't think it was for nothing," Cass says. "I thought I was saving something God loved. I was prideful enough to believe I was the faithful one, and Michael was in the wrong."

"It's not about right and wrong," Dean says. Fuck, it never is, is it? "Michael and Lucifer are stronger than all of us." Cass sets his mouth stubbornly; Dean can see him pulling argument after argument together in his head, none of which Dean wants to hear. "Tell me that doesn't matter," he says roughly. "Tell me God's going to send the cavalry at the last second to protect us because we're so fucking righteous and faithful."

He really, really wants Cass to tell him that. Even if it's total bullshit, he wants it to be something that Cass believes, because believing is in Cass' DNA, faithfulness is supposed to be the _point_ of him. What kind of world is Dean saving, when even an angel of the Lord can't find one single reason to believe that good things happen?

Cass looks away from Dean's eyes, mouth still stubborn, but silent.

Dean didn't think he could feel any more disappointment, but a little bit he still does. "Yeah, that's what I thought. You did it for nothing, Cass. I'm sorry, but it's not my fault; I never told you to spit in God's eye, and I never told you to follow me to Hell. So you can hit me some more if it makes you feel better. Hell, you could kill me if you want -- don't you get it? Nothing changes."

Nothing changes. All the warnings, all the plans, all the people who love Dean and want to fight for him. None of it matters. Everything burns.

Only God could stop it, except that God's the one who set the trap, and it's God who gave them just enough free will to fuck themselves over, to limp their way across the finish line instead of just stepping up and doing the job that needs doing in the first place.

Dean's father would be so damn disappointed in him. He never did think Dean had the stomach to make the hard calls, or the honor to face the music when the time came.

"Things change," Cass says. "I have changed." There's so much in those three words, more pain and loss and hope than most people pack into a lifetime. For what it's worth, Dean believes him. However the world does or doesn't end, it's barely going to be Dean's fault at all; he may be the last piece of the universal puzzle to fall into place, but he's still just one little piece of a pattern he can barely see. Cass, though. Cass bears basically no resemblance to the person he would've been if he'd never met Dean. Now you can say that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's sure _something_.

"But you're a detail," Dean says as gently as he can. "Sam ends up the Devil and I end up in Detroit. That's the stuff that matters, and that doesn't change. The only choice I get to make is how I show up for this fight, so I choose to go in big."

Cass meets his eyes. He touches the back of Dean's hand and his fingers lightly, curls his own fingers delicately around Dean's wrist. "I have never thought you were small," he says, and touches Dean's forehead.

The lights go out.


	7. Swan Song

Castiel dies cowering before Lucifer.

He was once so sure that he was a mighty warrior on behalf of Heaven, but his time on Earth has humbled him. Everything he has tried has failed. He has disobeyed God, destroyed Jimmy Novak, thwarted Michael out of weak-minded sentimentality and abandoned Dean on the field of the Final Battle to be torn apart, to be taken from the world he loved and sacrificed for. Adding dishonor to disgrace, Castiel could not even manage to face his ultimate end with dignity.

He has no pride left. His sins are many, but that one has been stripped from Castiel with terrible force.

 

Castiel stands in the shade of a grove of trees, the shadows of their branches dappling the sunlit grass beneath his feet, the scent of good black soil and roses all around him. Each branch dips low under the weight of its fruit, as many kinds of fruit as Castiel knew existed, and some he suspects only exist in this place. He knows the etheral sensation of Heaven's air as it passes through his lungs.

He still has lungs. That strikes Castiel as strange.

He looks at himself for the first time and sees his vessel's shape, his vessel's clothing.

He sees with eyes, with pupils that dilate and constrict as the shadows and light pass across his face.

This is Heaven, Castiel is sure. He is not sure what he is now. Something in a human body that can return to Heaven and yet feel sick with longing for a home that was never his, for a life he only wore like a coat, and only for the span of one sharp intake of cosmic breath -- for a life he cannot return to and cannot shed.

Another angel in the form of a man stands near him, dark-skinned and grey-bearded, leaning on a rake and regarding Castiel curiously. "You're early," he says.

"I failed," Castiel says. He wonders how much time has passed on Earth -- if the battle still rages. If Dean still lives. "Am I to be punished now?" he asks the Gardener.

"Is that what you think you deserve?"

Once the word meant something to Castiel. Now he can't even think of it without recoiling as if from the foulest obscenity imaginable. "Punish me," he says. If this is God, then perhaps this completes Castiel's Fall -- as he bared his throat to Lucifer, so now he shows his teeth to the All-Father, and the thing is done at last. At last. "Cast me in the pit. Consign me to whatever torment you will, for however long you will. But don't talk to me about justice. That's too fucking far."

"Hey, hey, there," the Gardener says. "Don't shoot the messenger."

Now Castiel recognizes his host. He feels naive for letting himself believe again, if only for a moment, that God would ever come to Castiel. "Where is He?" Castiel asks, but he's learned his lesson. He expects no answer. "Will He not even come now, will He not even look Himself on the suffering He ordained?"

Sam Winchester was a good man. Whether Creation lives or dies now, he will never be given the guardian that he deserves. Heaven did not love him as it loved the Michael-Sword. Heaven had no use for Sam, and therefore it demanded and desired absolutely nothing at all from him, and it will not mourn him. Only his Earthly loved ones will do that, and Castiel.

"He sees more than you think He does," Joshua says.

"If I am dead, why am I still in Heaven?" Castiel asks shortly. He is well-rested and refreshed by the air of this place. He is as prepared for his damnation as he will ever be, and he sees no reason to postpone it.

Joshua reaches up and plucks the closest piece of fruit without bothering to look at it, and he holds it out to Castiel. "For knowledge," he says.

Castiel takes it in his hand. It is a large plum, and he turns it over and over in his hand, letting his thumb graze its smooth surface, its slight cleft, its bluntly pointed tip. "I don't know anything," he says.

"But you do," Joshua says. "You know things that no one else can ever know. It's true of all of us, but you maybe a little more than most. So tell me something only you can tell me, Castiel: if you had it to do over again, would you change anything?"

He looks at the clear blue sky of Eden and he thinks of God's purifying light, the light of truth. Whatever he says next must be true.

He thinks of the golden tones swirling through Dean's soul, illuminated by hellfire. He thinks of the shadows cast by Dean's eyelashes under moonlight. He thinks of a neon pink sign in the window of a diner in southern Ohio, of an early morning during the last autumn of the world when they sat alone together, known and knowable to one another.

"No," Castiel says. "If I made mistakes, they were mine. I won't give back what's mine -- not my sins or my follies or my love."

For all he knows, Castiel stands on the edge of a bottomless chasm of darkness, of an eternity banished from divine light. For all he knows, the whole of Creation stands beside him, tottering on the boundary between the light of truth and the devouring jaws of ultimate judgment.

Somewhere a battle is being fought, or has been fought. Castiel is powerless to sway it now, but if Joshua wants an answer from him, at the very least he can cast his ballot on the side of truth.

"What does an angel know about love?" Joshua asks, with a smile that is not entirely kind.

 _More than God, it seems,_ Castiel wants to say.

That is not a permissible answer. Angels have Fallen for far less.

But then, Castiel is almost certainly already among the Fallen.

He pushes his shoulders back. He shakes his wings free and lets them unfurl into the breeze that stirs the shadows. "I'm the last of the true romantics," he says.

It may be the answer that saves him or damns him, or it may mean nothing at all, but at least it gives Joshua a good, long laugh. "One last question, Castiel," he says. "Is it humanity you sacrificed your immortality to save, or did you only love one man?"

Castiel thinks that over, but it's an unanswerable question; if the two are different at all, he cannot perceive the distinction. In his violence and deceit, vengefulness and doubt and selfishness and shortness of sight, in his loyalty and bravery and his resilient joy, his humor and quick mind and tender protectiveness and unconquerable hope, Dean is all of humanity to him. Dean is everything.

He says nothing, but somehow it's answer enough. Joshua smiles and says, "Ready to go?" Castiel holds the fruit out to return it. "You keep it," Joshua tells him. "For the road."

Somewhere out of sight, the engine of a car turns over, breaking through the deep Edenic stillness. Castiel turns around to get a glimpse of it, and everything around him goes dark.

 

Castiel arrives in Stull Cemetery moments after the battle's end; he can feel the heat of the force required to open a door into the Cage, still simmering beneath the ground. His eyes and his grace are exquisitely sensitive, bleeding divine energy.

He can see what happened here.

He can see the dimensions of the Cage, and the weaknesses in its fabric. He tucks that information away, because it will certainly matter.

He can see Bobby Singer's spirit, half-torn from its shattered vessel, tangled in the Veil.

He can see Dean Winchester's shattered heart.

When he looks up, he can see a sky that does not exist to mortal eyes, gashed open and seeping blood. This is an old wound, as old as the Earth itself; the firmament has necrotized around its injury, and still it bleeds. Castiel blinks at the jagged and broken sky, and he puts his hand in his pocket and touches the pit of a plum.

The sky is not broken. Heaven is broken. He sees it now.

It has been broken all along, perhaps ever since Lucifer's Fall, when the balance between Archangels was destroyed by free will. Heaven has grown sour and toxic, and no angel has seen it because every angel has been immersed in it.

Every angel until now. Until Castiel, whose molecules were torn apart by Lucifer and rewoven by God. He has been severed from the soul of his host, from his past, from everything he was -- which means that the new being who stands here on the day of the world's death and rebirth is something entirely new in Creation: a powerful angel who has never been to Heaven.

Castiel is pure and untainted and at peace. He can see the disease of Heaven, but it cannot touch him while he is on Earth.

He has been given this vision. He has been given this knowledge. Is this his mission now? To carry the message to Heaven, to tell the others?

To heal Heaven?

Castiel shivers under the black and bloody sky. He cannot even comprehend the arrogance it would require to believe that he alone could undo the wreckage created by the wars of Archangels. It's a doomed mission -- too massive, too dangerous, too inherently corrupting. No sane angel would accept it.

That leaves only Castiel.

 

"Cass, you're alive?" Dean says, struggling to shape the words with his broken mouth.

"I'm better than that," Castiel says, and sends the merest flicker of energy from his fingertips to make Dean as he should be again.

Dean blinks at him, taking in this Castiel who looks like but is not the one he knew. Castiel feels an affectionate ache when he thinks of the last first time Dean Winchester laid eyes on him -- Dean's belligerent and palpable fear, his piteous guilt, his longing to be punished and his stubborn inability to stop fighting anything and everything that crossed his path. How different they both are, now that Castiel is capable of humility and Dean is capable of hope. "Cass, are you God?" he breathes.

 _I should be_ , Castiel thinks. _I would never have let it come to this if I were._

A strange thought. Castiel has never had one like it before. There is still so much to learn about who and what he now is.

"That's a nice compliment," he says gently, "but no. Although I do believe that He brought me back, new and improved."

Angels are made for mission, and Castiel has been made twice over by God. He is still not fully ready to accept the mission before him in all its magnitude, but he knows now that God can show Castiel the way and increase his power. He knows that if he returns to Heaven to fight, he will not fight alone. God may not show Himself, but He doesn't need to, if he has servants who are willing to be faithful and brave.

It's easy to be faithful and brave here on Earth, with Dean by his side. Castiel knows it will not be so easy if he wades back into the poisoned waters of Heaven.

He doesn't have to agree to this. He knows he will not be forced, and perhaps it would be a relief to be replaced. He could remain here, pure and at peace, and let someone with a less colorful history of failure sew up the sky.

Angels have free will. Castiel was never taught that in Heaven, but it's true. It's the truth. But Castiel thinks it's a very specific sort of free will, one that allows them not to shirk duty, but to choose the greater purpose they will serve.

He would always and forever choose Dean Winchester, if Dean needed him. But Dean has arrived safely to the Final Battle and now departs safely again. There's no further mission here for Castiel. There's only a life to be lived, and it belongs to Dean alone.

 

"Where will you go now?" Castiel asks.

Dean leans his forearm on the roof of his car and looks around the field of battle one last time. It looks much as it did before they arrived. It looks as if they've made no difference here at all.

"Indiana, I guess," he says. "Sam thought it was the right thing to do, and -- he tends to be right a lot." Castiel notes the usage of the present tense, but he does not draw attention to it. "Indiana by way of Sioux Falls," Dean says, straightening up. "I have some personal stuff I want to pick up from Bobby's. You want to ride along? You just brought Bobby back from the dead, so he owes you a bottle of Scotch."

"Bobby owes me nothing," Castiel says. "I didn't do it in expectation of repayment."

"I know. Just -- look, just get in the car, okay?"

Castiel does. He is headed toward the wreckage of Heaven, but he might as well travel by way of Sioux Falls.

They drive in silence for some time, well past the setting of the sun, before Dean voices the question that has occupied Castiel's mind all the while. "What are you going to do now?"

"Return to Heaven, I suppose," Castiel says. He remembers how eager he was for his last mission. He knows so much more now.

"Heaven?" Dean says.

 _What did you expect me to say?_ Castiel nearly asks, before he remembers that Dean Winchester's difficult and contradictory expectations are no longer Castiel's problem. "With Michael in the Cage, I'm sure it's total anarchy up there," he says instead. Total anarchy isn't inherently better or worse than the tyrannical rule that Michael enforced in the name of God, but servility is a prison well-suited to angelic nature. Anarchy is a different sort of prison, with unknown rules, and the suffering it will introduce to Heaven will be experientially worse because it is new.

Castiel is already thinking in terms of strategy. How can he introduce free will to angels, but at the same time convince them that his way protects them from the anxiety of too much liberation too quickly? It's an interesting puzzle....

"So, what, you're the new sheriff in town?"

"I like that, yeah," Castiel says. "I suppose I am."

Good laws preserve freedom, don't they? And good laws require good enforcement.

Maybe that's been Castiel's trouble all along. Maybe he's always been a sheriff forced to play soldier.

"Wow," Dean says, manifestly unimpressed. "God gives you a brand-new, shiny set of wings and suddenly you're His bitch again."

"I don't know what God wants," Castiel says. "I don't know if He'll even return. It just...seems like the right thing to do." He knows it's a radical new concept, Heaven doing the right thing because it's right instead of because the orders have been handed down from on high. Just because it's radical doesn't mean it's impossible. He thinks.

"Well, if you do see Him, you tell Him I'm coming for Him next."

Castiel doubts very much that he'll have the opportunity to do that, but maybe it makes Dean feel better to think so. "You're angry."

"That's an understatement."

"Did you ever think that He's the one who needs our help? Maybe He's been praying to us all this time, hoping we will hear."

Jimmy Novak used to pray that God would open his eyes to any opportunity to improve the world that was suited to his abilities. Castiel always found that prayer endearing, but now he thinks it was profoundly wise. What other prayer is there? The mission is what comes before you; the mission is whatever you can do. The miracle is that you know it when you see it.

"That's easy for you to say," Dean snaps. "He brought you back. But what about Sam? What about me, huh? Where's my grand prize?"

Castiel is not at or anywhere near the limits of his compassion for Dean and Dean's pain, but... to be fair, the man always has been a little exasperating. "Do you think this is a prize?" he snaps back. "I'm sorry you're sad. I am. But you got exactly what you asked for: no paradise, no Hell, just more of the same. Earth goes on as it ever has, and what you have is not a curse -- it's family and love and grief and hope for the future. It's humanity. You're free of Michael now, but I will never be free. I'm leaving here for a new mission, and I'm leaving alone."

Angels do have free will, but Castiel's options were never limitless. Now that he's seen the pain of Heaven, certain choices are closed off to him forever; he is not now and never can be the person who turns his face away and pretends not to know.

Not for long, at least.

"Maybe I'll feel bad for you some other day," Dean says gruffly. "I don't have it in me right now, I'm sorry."

"I'm not interested in your pity. Dean, you -- you inspire me. I'm returning to Heaven so I can be on my plane of existence what you've been here. A guardian. A hero, I hope."

Dean looks over at him uncertainly. "Cass, I'm not that stuff; I'm just a hunter. All this, I didn't-- All I did was show up. My brother did all the work."

"No," he says. Castiel is not sure of everything, not anywhere close, but he's sure of this. "No, Dean. What you did for the world, you didn't do today in Stull. You did it every day of Sam's life, earning his love and trust through your actions, through your very being. A man or an angel can come along at the eleventh hour, like Adam and Michael, and they can try to do great deeds through great power, but those gestures are doomed to fail; they're playing a role. Becoming a hero, becoming a righteous man-- " Those words stop up Castiel's lips for a moment, steal his breath. He remembers being someone who believed in the righteous man and felt proud and honored to be allowed to serve him. He's someone else now, someone who loves Dean Winchester, and that is a greater privilege by far, and a greater burden. "It's the work of a lifetime," he finishes softly. "It's the lifetime's worth of work you've done, Dean Winchester, that makes you the savior of all you see."

Dean doesn't speak for a long time. At last he wipes the back of his hand over one eye and says, "Yeah, but am I bigger than the Beatles?"

"I don't understand the reference," Castiel sighs.

 

Castiel leaves Dean and Bobby more or less alone during supper; he doesn't need any of their fried chicken, and he's aware he doesn't always understand the way they process emotions, so he's unlikely to be able to provide anything they need, either.

It's emblematic of the crossroads where Castiel finds himself, this brief space where he serves no purpose on Earth and has yet to claim his purpose in Heaven. He isn't even sure why he still lingers here....

No, that's a lie. He does know.

Castiel walks outside, watching the stars come out one by one. The vision of the gash in the sky is gone now; it was only given to him when he needed to see it. Now it's his responsibility to remember.

He comes to rest beside Dean's beloved car. It vibrates with Dean's memories, with a little of his soul, and Castiel feels a pang of longing when he runs his hand over its cool, dark surface. It feels good under his skin, startlingly good. It feels like it wants to be stroked and petted, though Castiel admits it's also possible he is guilty of projection. Still, he obliges it, and he prays fervently for its strength and longevity. He believes it will one day accompany Dean to the Heaven that awaits them both, the place of endless roads where the reception is always clear on the radio -- but he wants that time to be long in coming.

"I hope she appreciates you," Castiel murmurs.

Dean comes outside in his own time, carrying two bottles of beer; Castiel accepts one and lets Dean click the two together. "I'll leave early in the morning," Dean says. "Probably before Bobby's even up. If I make decent time, I can be in Cicero by dinner tomorrow."

"Good idea," Castiel says. He doesn't always understand how Dean processes emotion, but his every instinct tells him that Dean should spend as little time alone as possible right now.

"So I guess.... I don't know," Dean says. "Is this -- it? The last I see of you?"

Strangely, Castiel hadn't thought of it that way. Only the reverse. "You can always pray," he says. "I'll hear you, and if I can help you, I will."

"Right, but -- am I supposed to wait until I need help?" Castiel looks at him, not sure that the question being asked is the one he's really supposed to answer. "Lisa's a cool chick," Dean says, which sounds like a non sequitur until he continues, "It's not like she's going to say I can never have friends come visit."

"Am I your friend?"

Dean looks a little startled. "You're about all I have left, so -- I hope so." He takes a deep breath then and says, "Come with me tomorrow."

"I have work to do," Castiel says. He can't stay here at the crossroads forever. He can't just...hang around until the day when he knows how to say goodbye to Dean.

"One lousy day," Dean says, as if Castiel is being deliberately and unfairly difficult.

It's so damned trying. Dean is always just so.... "Would you like me to ring her doorbell for you, too?" Castiel says, knowing he sounds disagreeable, knowing he sounds -- bitchy. This isn't the way he wants to end things, but...he doesn't think it's entirely his fault.

To his surprise, Dean doesn't bridle up the way he normally does when Castiel takes a tone with him. He just looks at the ground and says, "I know it's a shit thing to ask you, but -- it's a twelve-hour drive with an empty shotgun seat. I'm asking anyway."

And he wouldn't ask, Castiel knows, if the answer didn't matter to him. Castiel wrestles with it in his imagination for another moment, but his heart already knows he'll give in. "To Indiana," he says, "as a favor to you. No further."

"Deal," Dean says, unable to hide the slackening of his posture that indicates relief.

Long after their beer is gone, they sit side by side on the hood of the Impala, reclining against the windshield and watching the night pass. From this angle, everything looks whole and complete and perfectly ordered. Perhaps in its way, Earth truly is all of those things; perhaps Dean was always right to give everything he had only to keep the world as it is.

Castiel has learned so much from him. He doesn't know how to tell Dean that, at least not in a way that Dean won't immediately scoff at and deny, but it's the truth.

"Okay, so here's what happens now," Dean says in that voice that brooks no disagreement, sliding off the hood of the car to his feet. "I'm going to grab a shower and then take one of the upstairs beds. You can do whatever you want."

"All right," Castiel says.

"Cass -- listen up, man." Castiel turns his head to look at Dean and finds him standing closer than he realized. "You can do whatever you want," he says, emphasizing each sound carefully.

"All-- Oh."

Oh.

Can he do whatever he wants? Castiel does have free will, as it turns out. He can do this if he chooses it: he can come up to Dean's room with him, he can lie down on the bed and hold Dean in his arms, comfort him and promise him that their new life begins now, free of Heaven's meddling, resurrected and redeemed by God Himself for one another.

It's half a lie, or maybe more than half. But he _could_ do it, nonetheless.

This is the purest Castiel will ever be. Tomorrow night he returns to Heaven, and he has more faith in God than he did twenty-four hours ago, but he still suspects that he will quickly take on the very taint of corruption that traps his sisters and brothers. He pins his hopes on his ability to remember what it feels like to be here, to be free.

This is what it feels like to be free.

"Come on, man," Dean says -- not an order, but a quiet urging for Castiel to see reason. "I know you aren't going to drop in and say hi -- sit and drink beer with me in Lisa's garage, talking about the good old days. I know this is the end of the road." He takes Castiel's hand, palm to palm, lacing their fingers together. "The last night of the world."

Castiel breathes in sharply. He can't help it, it feels so-- Dean's hand feels like nothing he's felt before, hot and solid and -- perfect. He's experienced what he thought of as attraction toward Dean; he's been intrigued, and even covetous. But this is something else entirely, a blinding light that flares out from the center of him and enflames every cell at once. The only thing he can remotely compare it to is the firm stroke of Dean's hand up his shaft, and even that feels one-dimensional when set against this strange, fierce pleasure that penetrates Castiel's body and thoughts and grace, pinning them together like a spear.

Dean frowns. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he manages, "I just.... I'm not in a vessel anymore, this body is mine. I'm not -- used to it yet. The sensations are all...different...from before."

Dean cocks his head a little and inspects him more carefully. "That so," he says, question and speculation all at once. He shifts his hand a little, drawing his thumb down the outside of Castiel's thumb, over the heel of his hand and across his wrist. Castiel shudders. "Well, lucky you," Dean says, and then with just a note of affectionate mockery, he asks, "Is this your favorite thing about being human?"

"I'm not human," Castiel manages, "I just...." That's as far as he gets before Dean is bending over him, putting his other hand on Castiel's neck, working his collar open until his fingers are tracing Castiel's jugular vein, and Castiel's desperate, rapid gasping for air is pushing his throat again and again into the cup of Dean's palm.

"You really did get the hundred-point restoration, didn't you?" Dean says. Castiel doesn't understand the reference, but Dean's voice sounds approving.

"Is this what you want?" Castiel asks. It's always so hard for him to guess, when it comes to Dean. He's very frequently wrong.

Dean only hesitates a moment, but he does look away from Castiel's eyes as he says, "Well, I just figure, everything we've been through together -- I kind of owe you."

This is exactly why Castiel asks this sort of thing, instead of trying to guess. He removes Dean's hand from his neck and shakes the other one from his wrist, and he tries to slither his way back to a firmer sitting position with as much grace as possible. "You're wrong," he says. "My mission is finished, and all our obligations to one another discharged. And I've never done anything for you in expectation of repayment."

"Cass, I didn't mean.... Damn." Dean scrubs his hand down his face, and he looks weary beyond words. Castiel couldn't be angry with him if he tried. "You know I didn't mean that like it came out."

"I know," Castiel says. He knows that Dean says _indebted_ only because it's so daunting for him to say _lonely_. He knows that even torn open with all his heartache and mourning visible to everyone around him, Dean struggles to confess any weakness. Castiel knows that he is as pure and at peace as he will ever be, but Dean is not. "I'm sorry you're sad."

He truly is. Castiel has compassion enough for both of them.

"Yeah," Dean says. "Well. Whatever you want."

Dean goes inside without looking behind him, and Castiel doubts that he's expected to follow. He spends a little more time watching the stars, then stands up on legs that still quiver a bit with the churn of his adrenaline and lets himself in the car, where he waits in his seat until morning.

 

He's waiting there patiently when Dean comes out with his bags and his travel mug. He tries not to watch Dean too intently, but he does note the slight surprise that passes over Dean's face when he sees Castiel.

Dean says his goodbyes to Bobby, who is awake after all. They embrace, and Bobby's sometimes stern face is soft with earnest worry and uncomplicated love. Dean squirms a bit under the intensity of it, but his eyes show gratitude, and he is not the first to break off their final embrace.

"Wasn't sure I'd see you this morning," Dean says to Castiel when he gets in the car.

"I will abide by the terms of our bargain," Castiel says. It's not the friendliest reply, but Castiel thinks he can be forgiven this once.

"Oof," Dean says. "I guess I deserve that."

"That God-damned word," Castiel scoffs.

"Preach," Dean says, and guns the engine.

The trip is not as unbearable as Castiel had feared. They do make good time, in spite of Dean insisting on stopping every three hours to drive through another restaurant and buy Castiel another cheeseburger. He eats them all, though he doesn't care one way or another about them; it's a peace offering, and Castiel is willing to accept it in the spirit it's intended.

All the radio stations come in clearly, and the Impala purrs when Castiel touches the borders of its window, feeling the subtle vibrations of the interstate, knowing that he's leaving his fingerprints behind on the chrome. Iowa is a desperately dull drive, but it's late spring and warm and the roadsides are a tangle of wildflowers, so at least their one perpetual vista is a pleasant one.

Under different circumstances, it would be a nice day. Under these circumstances -- Castiel still feels as if they've both been given a sort of peace offering. At this rate if he's not careful, he'll become a believer again.

"Dean," he says, when they cross the border from Illinois.

"I know," Dean says.

He pulls into something called the Spring Creek Welcome Center. Castiel doesn't see what's especially welcoming about it, but the spring part is true enough. He gets out of the car when Dean parks in the lot, mostly because Dean does. Dean feeds a fistful of change into a vending machine for Coke and candy bars. Castiel doesn't know that he's needed for this part, but he stands amidst the wildflowers and waits for Dean to be finished -- waits for something, at least.

He's waiting to find the right words, waiting to know what's left to say, on the day after the last night of the world.

Dean throws the candy into the seat that only moments ago was Castiel's. Two days ago, it was Sam's seat. Now it's just empty space. Castiel's chest hurts.

He feels so vulnerable in this body. Is this what it feels like to be human? Does _everything_ hurt? Never mind freedom or peace, free will or theodicy -- Castiel thinks it's miraculous that humans get anything at all done under these conditions.

Dean starts to move away from him, away from the passenger door and back toward his own. Castiel stops him, closing a hand over Dean's clavicle. Dean stiffens and tries to pull away, glancing to one side and then the other, as if there's any reason for either of them to give a damn who sees. "Please make something easy for once in your life," Castiel says tartly. He leans close enough to kiss Dean's forehead, and then to press his forehead to the same spot. "You deserve Sam's love," he murmurs. "You deserve your father's love -- and my Father's. You deserve--" Dean's breath stops for a moment, and Castiel thinks if he can't push on, time itself stops here forever. But he can. He can do this. "-- Lisa Braeden's love. You deserve all of it and always did."

Dean nods, and Castiel lets him go.

Dean tugs the lapels of Castiel's coat straight, then brushes over his shoulders fussily. "You be good up there, Cass," he says, and oddly, Castiel is fairly sure he understands what Dean is trying to convey. "Show 'em how it's done."

"Oh, I intend to," Castiel says.

 


	8. You Can't Handle the Truth

Dean's almost madder that Cass did come than he would've been if Cass hadn't. He's getting pretty blase about being ignored, but being used is still just a little fucking much. "Are you kidding me?" he says. "I have been on red alert about Sam for days, and you come about some stupid horn?"

"You asked me to be here, and I came," Cass says, like it's just that simple.

Like a damn thing has been simple since -- well, since before the Apocalypse. It's starting to feel, looking back, like the end of the world happened after all, sometime when Dean took his eye off the ball.

"I've been asking you to be here for days, you dick!" He knows, he knows, Cass is Gettysburging it up in Heaven and he doesn't have time for the problems of lesser life forms anymore. But Dean can oversimplify, too, and you know what, honestly it sucks no matter what Cass' really good reasons are.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not with Cass.

"I didn't come here about Sam because I have nothing to offer about Sam."

"So he has to be gift-wrap for Lucifer before you start caring what happens to him? Well, I got great news for you, because he just might be. We can get the band back together."

Cass picks up Dean's whiskey bottle and tops off his glass like it's a totally normal thing to do. Dean's pretty sure he's the one who taught Cass that when things start to go off the rails, you're supposed to reach for the liquor. If Dean ever has any spare time to worry about something other than Sam turning into a Batman villain, he'll probably feel bad about that. "Lucifer is safely in the Cage. We'd know if he had escaped."

Dean guesses that's technically reassuring, in the way that _You aren't sharing a bathroom with Satan_ is, in broad strokes, good to hear. But it still falls pretty far short of a satisfying answer. "Something's wrong with Sam. Bad wrong."

"I know," Cass says flatly, and yeah, Cass can come off a little creepazoid sometimes, but.... But he's better than this. He at least knows how to sound like he gives a fuck, when he wants to, which means he doesn't want to right now. "I have no new information for you."

"What happened to you, Cass?" Normally when Cass is being a straight-up asshole, Dean has to at least entertain the idea that he's got a good reason for it. God knows no one ever claimed Dean was easy to deal with, but it can't be Dean's fault this time, right? He hadn't even _seen_ Cass to piss him off for months, until the Staff of Moses thing, and Cass came right out of the starting gate mad at him that time, too. Dean honestly can't figure out why; when they said goodbye to each other last spring, they were -- getting along okay. "You used to be human, or at least like one."

"I'm at war," Cass reminds him for the millionth time. "Certain -- regrettable things are now required of me." Dean's just starting to trade confused-and-kinda-hurt for pissed-at-Cass again, when out of basically nowhere, Cass shivers like a cat just walked over his grave and his eyes suddenly do that -- begging thing they do sometimes -- and boom, he's Cass again. He's Dean's Cass. "I just... Dean, how do you do it? I only wanted to do what you've done -- to fight on behalf of the defenseless -- but I can't.... This is so hard."

Oh, Jesus. He's been gone so long he forgot that thing about how Dean's a shitty role model. "Cass, I kill monsters," he says. "What you're doing -- yeah, it's about a million times harder. I mean, you're killing angels. And sure, that sounds like a birthday treat to me, but -- they're still your family. I couldn't do it. If I were in your shoes, I mean."

"Well," Cass says. He eyes the bottle for a moment, then takes a swig from it without so much as a please or thank you. Fucking angels. "Certainly not now."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Cass gestures with the bottle in his hand, a vague up-and-down that seems to sum up and dismiss Dean from top to bottom. "Obviously happiness has weakened you."

" _Hey_ ," Dean says, because he was being _nice_ right then. Is there even a point to being nice to Cass anymore?

"I don't mean it as an insult," Cass says. "It's a neutral observation."

"I can barely get you to answer the phone," Dean says. "How much time do you want me to believe you've spent _observing_ me?"

"Shall we talk about Aaron Birch?" Cass asks, and Dean's about to decline his kind invitation when he goes right ahead and says, "You weren't capable of viewing him as a hunter. You could only see him through a father's eyes. If I'd listened to you, we never would have found Balthazar."

The very last thing in the entire universe Dean wants to talk about right now is Ben, but if Cass wants to talk about Balthazar? Oh, bring it the fuck on; there's a thing or two Dean's been dying to say on that topic. "Oh, okay, that's a great point," he says, "because if you hadn't tortured that kid, then Balthazar would've gotten away with his stash of angel WMDs and we'd have to chase a trail of dead bodies all over the planet to find _oh, hey, wait."_

"I didn't torture him," Cass mutters.

"What?"

"The pain was neither the purpose, nor a means to an end. It was an unfortunate byproduct of the research process. It was vivisection, if anything."

"Okay, between you and Sam, I have just about had it up to here with this creepy serial killer crap," Dean begins.

"Then go home!" Cass says, louder than he's said anything at all to Dean since the good ol' days. So that's -- progress? "Go home, Dean. Look after your mate and child. Be happy. You said it yourself: you aren't capable of doing the things that have to be done now."

"And you are?"

He wants Cass to say no -- needs it, really. He doesn't know what the fuck he's going to do if Cass says yes, because Dean can't -- he can't keep losing people he cares about like this, their bodies hanging around while their weird alien eyes stare at Dean like he's nothing but a situation to be managed.

"I suppose that remains to be seen," Cass says.

It's not the worst thing he could say, but it doesn't help, either. Classic Cass. "I can't go home, I'm working a job," Dean snaps. "Now, did your skeevy boyfriend make off with Gabriel's Horn or not?"

Well, he's got Cass' attention now. Might as well make a giant mess with it, right?

"My-- _excuse me_?"

"Oh, come on, Cass. From the second we got back in contact with you, it's been, oh, the mission, the war, the fate of the universe -- you've had your drama queen set to 11 every fucking second, right up until you uncover a secret cache of weapons that could turn this thing around for you, and what do you do? You blow the whole deal because you for some reason can't lean on your 'old friend' with the foxy British accent. You have the balls to call me weak? Everyone in this room knows exactly what your weakness is. Same as it ever was."

Maybe it's not _totally_ fair, but he knows Cass is going to deny it up one side and down the other, and that's not fair, either. Normal people get a dumb crush on the first person to show them a half-decent time, but Cass is on a level all by himself, jumping directly from a billion years of _I've never had occasion_ to full-on lighting an Archangel up like a tiki torch, and from there it's just a blip in his immortality to get to the absinthe-fueled orgies, so yeah, Cass doesn't need to go around acting like he has his shit together when he clearly has zero sense of proportion when it comes to fucking.

"Hmm, no," Cass says snottily. "No, I don't think _you_ are allowed to be jealous."

"Hey, pal, I don't need your _permission_ to be jealous." Actually, come to think of it, "allowed" was probably not the word that should've been up for debate there. Whoops.

" _Indiana_ ," Cass spits at him like he's smacking his ace down on the table. "I asked you where you'd go and you said Indiana, I wasn't given a choice or a chance, and I said nothing, because I wanted you to be happy. Now you decide retirement doesn't suit you, so you call me back here and you want to hold me to some -- what? Some standard of fidelity to a relationship I was never in? As it happens, I have no interest in being romantically entangled with Balthazar -- although, by the way, if I did have, I certainly could be -- but if I decide to take on an entire garrison of angels as lovers, what you get to say about it is _nothing_ , and you know it."

On that note, he vanishes, because Cass loves a good flounce. "Goddammit, Cass!" Dean yells at the empty room.

He didn't even leave Dean's whiskey.

Dean turns around, thinking he'll leave the hotel, slam the door real hard and pretend that he got the last word, and lo and behold, there's Cass right behind him. "It's not the fucking Horn," he says. "Find another lead."

"Wait, are you sure? You were gone for two seconds, where did you look?"

"Everywhere." Of course everywhere. Right.

Dean grabs his bottle back out of Cass' hand and sits down on his bed. "Well, this was fun. We should do this more often."

"If that's your way of saying 'thank you,' then you're welcome," Cass says. Dean glares. "Why are you doing this to me?" Cass bursts out, and Dean can't quite tell if he's still mad, or confused, or just exhausted. Can Cass even get exhausted? It almost sounds like he can. "You surely can't think so little of me that you believe I'd withhold information that would help Sam if I had it. He's my friend, and your brother. I do want to help, I just -- I'm stretched to the breaking point, Dean." Cass takes a couple of steps closer, then pauses like he's waiting for Dean to tell him to stay the fuck away.

He could say that; it's not even bad advice. He's never been what you'd call a wholesome and healthy choice for Cass. He's not even much of a friend right now, always pulling on Cass' sleeve and vomiting neediness all over him when he doesn't have the time or the power or, honestly, the slightest desire to follow Cass up to Heaven and return the favor. There's a list of reasons as long as Dean's arm that he should tell Cass to keep his distance.

He doesn't, though. He never does, does he?

Cass steps closer again and says, "I'm holding Heaven and Earth together with my bare hands, and I hate to shatter whatever image you have of me as the font of all Heavenly power, but I'm losing this war. If Raphael destroys everything we fought for, if everything we did means nothing-- "

It's the _we_ part that gets to Dean, or maybe it's the way it rolls so easily off of Cass' tongue. "Okay, hey," Dean says, and he reaches out and takes hold of Cass' hand. "Hey, I'm sorry. Breathe."

Dean doesn't actually remember pulling Cass down next to him, but there must've been some element of premeditation, because he's put the bottle out of the way for safekeeping before he winds up with an armful of Cass. An armful of Cass feels -- weird, but honestly not as weird as it probably should feel. Dean fits his arm tight across Cass' back for support and works his other hand up the muscles in Cass' neck and into the dense spaces between his vertebrae, the same spots that he works out on himself when he's got caffeine-and-insomnia headaches. Cass just curls up tighter and tighter as Dean works, until Dean has a warm, breathing nautilus shell leaning across him.

"You owe me an apology," Cass says, and the words are muffled into Deans shoulder while Dean literally pets him, so honestly Dean thinks he's come through where it counts.

"I just did apologize," he says. "Ten seconds ago?"

"That wasn't an apology, that was just the noise you make when you think someone is about to make an emotional scene."

"About to make a scene? Buddy, you were well into Act Three of your emotional opera."

"I hate you," Cass says.

Dean scritches up into his hairline. "Wouldn't your life be so much easier if you did?"

"Probably," Cass admits. "Having principles is _so much work_. I don't know how anyone keeps this up."

"Most people don't," Dean says. "Cass -- I am sorry. I just -- I missed you and Sammy so much, and then I get you both back, and you're both-- Everything's just so fucked."

"You missed me?" Cass says, and he's not fishing for a compliment. He's honestly surprised, and a little bit it breaks Dean's heart.

"I thought it was pretty obvious," Dean says. "I was so -- so weird and clingy when you were -- leaving. Remember?"

_Remember_ \-- what the hell is he even saying? _Hey, remember when I was crumbling into a million pieces and you were getting a promotion and I was so pathetically needy that I basically offered to fuck you if you'd just pretend you were still my guardian angel for one more night? I think it was in May sometime?_

He's pretty damn sure Cass remembers.

"You didn't seem clingy to me," Cass says, and then he sits up and fusses with his rumpled coat for a second before saying, "We should both make an effort to limit our interactions to pragmatic matters.

Dean rubs his eyesockets with the heels of his hands. "You give me fucking whiplash, you know that? One second you're spraying feelings all over the place like Mt. St. Helen's, and before I can figure out what to say to you, you're a robot again."

Cass gives him a bristly look, but it's not up to Cass' usual standards. "I am not a robot. I'm just trying to protect myself."

"What, against me?"

"Yes, against you! Don't pretend you think my weakness is _Balthazar_ ; you're not stupid." And -- okay. Maybe it's not fucking in general that screws with Cass' sense of proportion. Maybe Dean never really believed that, even though he did enjoy having a good fake reason to think the worst of Balthazar. "I won't abandon you, Dean; I know what Sam being unwell does to you, and I'll -- make inquiries. I'll do what I can. But I can't be kind to you, not without -- opening myself to distractions, and potentially worse than that. So you would actually be doing me a very great favor if you would...stop trying to be kind to me."

"I don't know if I can do that," Dean says, because he's always tried to be up-front with Cass. "I've never just -- stopped caring about someone before. How does that even work?"

Cass smiles wanly at him. "I was doing my best to expedite the process."

"Your plans are always so catastrophically bad. Have you thought about maybe not coming up with the plans for a while?"

"You're the only person who's suggested it," Cass sighs. "Everyone else is always asking me what the plan is now. I don't know how much longer it's going to take before they notice the -- catastrophically bad part."

"I wish I knew how to help," Dean says.

"I feel the same way. About both of us." Cass stands up, adjusts his tie and smooths his hair down, and it prickles weirdly down Dean's spine. He almost feels guilty, even though he just mussed Cass up a little bit, he didn't -- _muss Cass up._ "I will contact you the moment I know anything relevant to your situation. You may do the same."

Dean's not by nature a trusting person, but at this point all he can really do is trust Cass to keep his word. It helps, knowing that the old Cass is still in there somewhere.

Or does it make things so much worse, knowing how hard Cass is having to work to strangle the parts of himself that Dean used to like best?

Maybe reading his mind a little bit, or maybe not, Cass hunches his shoulders and says, "You don't know how bad it is up there, Dean. There are spies everywhere -- backstabbers -- assassinations and hostages and -- things I never thought the Host of Heaven capable of. I was so naive. I only pray the Apocalypse doesn't come about because I'm too cowardly to stare directly into the truth of what we are."

"You're not a coward," Dean says, reflexively pissed at anyone, even Cass, who would say that. "You're a lot of things, but you're not a coward."

"I miss the person I was when I was bound to you," Cass says, and yeah, he's reading Dean's mind, whether he knows it or not. "Sometimes I -- fear that it never really happened the way that I remember it...."

"What do you mean?"

Cass looks at him, and it's the weirdest combination of intensity and unfathomable distance. It's a weird expression even on the scale Dean uses to measure Cass looks. "I'm concerned that I can't separate memory from fantasy? So many things seem...distorted somehow in my mind. I remember...sitting across a table from you, by a large window. And there was pink light outside, dusk or dawn, and another pink light... the table glowed pink.... You seemed happy. And you -- drew a duck, can that be right? I think of that place all the time, and it's so restful, but I don't know where it was or if we were ever there together at all...."

For a second Dean doesn't think he can speak at all, but then he reminds himself that Cass could blip out without warning. He needs to know this, and in the whole world only Dean can tell him. "It was a diner called -- Bruno's, I think? In some nowhere little town just south of Lancaster, Ohio. You saved me from Zachariah, and we had breakfast there. You stole half my bacon, and the waitress thought you were cute. It's a real memory, Cass. We were there. You and me."

"Oh," Cass says. "That's good, then. I think of it when I need to remember why it's so important not to bring Earth to an end, so it would be disappointing to learn it was my own invention."

He disappears then, leaving Dean saying, "It really happened," to absolutely no one.

 


	9. Like a Virgin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy! If you've been keeping up with chapters as they update, first, thank you so much, it REALLY helps keep me (mostly) on schedule with the updates (this one's -- early for this week, or late for last week, however you choose to think of it!) And second, I'm trying to Get Back Into Fandom this year, so I'm actually using the Tumblr that I never used to use. I'd love to Tumblmeet people! I'm @Heatheralicewatson

It's becoming a bad habit, meeting Winchesters in hotel rooms.

No. Revise. It was always a bad habit.

"Look, I -- I would hug you-- " Sam says, unconvincingly.

"But that would be awkward," Castiel agrees. However much he has come to love Earth, he is still an angel. He's come to love the Earth well enough to understand how humans see his kind, how the cold fire of their single-minded purpose puts humans on guard, how their apparent ease with violence can make even Sam Winchester, who drank fresh blood in his very cradle, shy away from physical contact.

It is a conundrum. If the relationship between Heaven and Earth is to be repaired....

Time enough to solve that problem when Raphael is dead. First, peace in Heaven. Second, friendship between humankind and the Host. Third, order restored to Earth, and safety, and innocence. Fourth -- should Castiel be so fortunate as to survive that long -- perhaps hugging.

"Um...was a crazy year, huh?" Sam says. "I -- just talked to Bobby. He -- he told me everything that happened."

"Frankly I'm surprised you survived," Castiel says. "I was begging Dean not to do it."

That's churlish of him. Dean's gamble has paid off, and there is no real need for Sam to know how close to death he came, or how reckless and arrogant Dean can be when he's pursuing his singular driving mission of preserving what remains of the Winchester family intact.

He probably knows that last part already anyway.

"Yeah," Sam says. "No, I -- I can understand that."

Castiel can't resist twisting the knife a bit more. "You know, it's a miracle it didn't kill you," he says innocently. _He tried to kill you. He will have it done his own way, always, no matter who he risks, no matter who he destroys. Love him if you must, but trust him at your peril._

If Sam were a rational person, he'd be grateful for the warning.

Castiel wishes someone had delivered the same warning....

But of course, Castiel was warned, time and again. About humans. About Dean Winchester. About love and sin and lust and idolatry, about incarnation, about memory. He listened to precisely none of them.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's a miracle, all right," Sam says.

Indeed. Another one of God's poisoned gifts, rolled into the path of the runners to distract them from the race. Fuck every miracle; Castiel feels each one of them that he's ever received like a lash on his back, compelling him, punishing him....

He takes a breath. This knowledge is not for Sam Winchester. Castiel has already caused enough harm through the thoughtless miracle he tried to work on Sam's behalf.

So far Castiel is sowing mainly destruction and pain through his newfound power.

That's how he knows it is Divine.

"So how does it feel?" he asks. Sam is a curious thing now, full of memories of being human and Fallen angel, pure bloody-minded survival and soulful child of God. It must be fascinating, and perhaps even useful, if Castiel does ever get so far as to need a bridge between worlds.

"What?"

"Well, to have your soul back, of course."

"Right. You mean, cause I was walking around with no soul. Uh... really good, Cass. I'm real good." That's nice to hear. Sam has historically been off-putting to angels as well as the reverse -- all that demon blood, and his deep resonance with the Adversary -- but Castiel likes to think he himself operates on a higher plane of thinking. There is much to admire about Sam from an objective point of view, and Castiel's point of view is not at all objective, indelibly colored by the outlandish, irrational liberality of Dean's love for his brother. He is not put off by Sam; he is sincerely fond. At this particular moment, Sam might be Castiel's favorite Winchester. "You know what, I'm just hazy on a few of the details, though. Um, you think maybe you could -- walk me through?"

"Of course," Castiel says. "It's so disorienting to be unable to rely on one's own memories. I understand."

They have no shortage of things in common, and that is the foundation of a lasting friendship, isn't it?

Well, how the fuck would he know? But it sounds reasonable.

So he sits and drinks beer and tells Sam whatever seems relevant, which turns out to be quite a lot. Sam makes it almost too easy; more than once, Castiel has to pull up abruptly when he finds himself about to speak of Crowley, of Purgatory.

These secrets are a terrible burden. He thinks of the lifetime of dark and distancing secrets Sam and Dean have been forced to keep, and it goes a long way to explaining their eccentricities, and their devotion. It's been little more than an Earthly year, and Castiel can sometimes feel....

He knows he's not himself. He has power enough to challenge an Archangel, but it flows through a grace that was never created to contain so much Divinity. He's being pried open, cracked like a boulder that's taken on water in its pores. Soon he'll be nothing but shattered pieces in the riverbed.

Unless he wins.

Even if he wins? Perhaps. Crowley assures him the souls in Purgatory will strengthen him, but Crowley is a liar and an opportunist who schemes to destroy Castiel just as surely as Castiel schemes to destroy him. Crowley's assurances mean nothing.

He does tell Sam about the war in Heaven -- not in gory detail, of course, but... Well, he seems interested. He is very easy to talk to, and he has far better taste in beer than his brother does.

"I'm really sorry," Sam finally says.

"Sorry for what?"

"Well, it just seems like...things got a lot better here after we got rid of Lucifer, and they didn't...get better for you."

He hasn't really thought of it that way. He's not sure it's accurate. "I wouldn't say a _lot_ better. Some of it may simply have bothered you much less, without your soul. Earth is still a dangerous and very unjust place."

Sam smiles a little. "Good point. I guess I was just...taking that part as a given."

"You shouldn't be so cynical," Castiel says.

"No?"

Castiel sighs and adjusts his empty beer bottles so all three labels are facing the same direction, like a well-ordered rank of soldiers. "I have to believe it can be made better. Why should we fight at all if it can't? Wouldn't it be so much nicer to devote ourselves to cheeseburgers and kissing, if it's all the same in the end?"

Sam laughs, but it doesn't seem to be a laugh at Castiel's expense. "You've been hanging around with Dean too much."

"No," Castiel says. "Not recently."

Something in his tone or his face sobers Sam's mood quickly. "Can I ask you something?" Castiel gestures him on. "Are you the reason it didn't work out with Dean and Lisa?"

 _No_ , he almost says, _you are the reason._ But that seems unkind, even though it's true. Castiel can't think of anything to be gained by setting another cycle of Winchester guilt into motion at this time. "I have nothing to do with that," he says instead. "I couldn't honestly tell you why they were ever together, or why they aren't now. It's not something he and I discuss."

"Right," Sam says. "No. I guess he wouldn't."

"I don't think he belongs in a house," Castiel says. He didn't know he had any opinion on the matter until the words come out of his mouth, but now he feels quite strongly about it. Dean belongs on a road, under infinite stars. It's where he is most himself, and it's where -- well, not where Castiel loves him best, but where Dean is always best able to receive love. Castiel is sure it's no coincidence that the two times Dean nearly kissed him were both in a field of cars, all of them silent and small in the eternally expanding night.

"He's always wanted one," Sam says gently. "It's important to him."

"It isn't, he only thinks it should be," Castiel says. Sam raises his eyebrows, likely unused to anyone challenging his ability to codebreak his brother. But Castiel has studied Dean as intensely as Sam has, and though he's had fewer years to work on the puzzle, he does read minds. That surely evens the field a bit. "Dean imagines the man he might've been, with a house and a family, and in his imagination, that man is superior to the reality of him. But we are never really what we might've been. In a house, with a family, he was still only himself. I think it ended because he was disappointed to discover that."

Sam smiles down at the table. "I always looked up to him -- felt like I fell short of -- all the things he was good at, the way he seemed so happy and so fearless even on our very worst days. It's just so...crazy to me. That he can feel like he's not enough. But then, I guess that's.... Dean thinks he's so much like Dad, but he's not. Dad was more like me in a lot of ways. Always looking for something else, always wanting more. 'S just how he was, but Dean -- took it so personally. Like he was specifically wanting more _from Dean_ , instead of just -- from himself and God and the universe and all that. Like it was something Dean was doing wrong, keeping Dad from being happy. Dad was never gonna be happy. Jesus, I'm not sure now if he ever would've been happy even if Mom had lived. Some people... you know, some of us are just wired that way."

"It's a broken world," Castiel murmurs. He wishes he could explain it all -- the wound in Heaven, the angels' abdication from their true purpose, the terrible violence that God's silent and eternally expanding absence has done to the very heart of Creation. All things are disintegrating, becoming silt and gravel in the riverbed of time, and Castiel's continual and faithful prayers have become an incessant scream of rage in his head, because they are all just children suspended in empty space, clinging to a thin thread of freedom, and the love they long for is forever withheld from them _for no reason at all_ , but simply and horrifically because it is their Father's nature to be unsatisfied.

"Thought you had to believe it could get better," Sam reminds him.

"I do believe that," he says.

 _If we had a better God_ , he doesn't say. Aloud, at least, although he's grown increasingly comfortable with the thought.

Castiel doesn't claim that he would be a _perfect_ deity, if all his plans should come to fruition, and the combined powers of the last true Archangel and all of Purgatory flowing together with his grace really do give him the power to reshape Creation. He's not prideful; he knows his imperfections well.

But the God they already have is imperfect in the extreme. And at least Castiel would _try_. Mistakes will surely be made along the way, but he'll learn from them, and things will improve.

If this works....

He's not prideful. He knows his limits. But he can do _better than this_ , he's sure. He can make improvements over time to Heaven and Earth, just as he's made improvements to himself. It's all a road, isn't it? Isn't that why roads are so very easy to love?

Castiel rolls his shoulders, feeling dense and restless in this body that contracts and solidifies every time he sets foot on the Earth plane -- this body that sharpens and senses, that feels the impact of his every thought. His body is bound to him now wherever he goes, but Heaven sits more lightly on his malleable matter than Earth does. Sam notices right away and says, "Are you okay?"

"Well enough," Castiel says. "Being here is taxing in some ways, both mentally and physically. Do you think..." He shouldn't ask for favors. Sam owes him nothing, has no reason to.... But they are friends, aren't they? In a sense? "No one knows I'm here, and -- I'll have to go back soon enough, but in the meantime there are -- certain experiences that only.... Do you think I could take a shower here?"

The little look of worry smooths out of Sam's face instantly. Apparently he takes it as a very minor request, although to Castiel it feels far more awkwardly intimate than a simple hug. "Of course," he says lightly. "Whatever you want."

 _Listen up, man,_ he hears in his head. _You can do whatever you want._

More and more, it's true. Since his death, he has been greatly elevated in power, and since he kindled this rebellion he's grown steadily in political position as well. Castiel is on the rise, glory and victory and brutality and blasphemy filling his wings, lifting him ever higher. He can murmur a word, and angels die. He can move like thought between realms, walk into and out of Hell itself at will, split humans apart and lay their every secret bare. Of course he can take a fucking shower if he wants one; it was a different Castiel who had to whimper and wait and hope for any little drop of pleasure he had the audacity to want.

 _You can do whatever you want_ , Dean Winchester told him. Taught him. Promised him. Dean's battle cry -- free will and iniquity and righteousness, the boundaries between all of them blurred or nonexistent. _When you need a job done, you man up and you do it_ \-- but don't hurt anyone, don't be too harsh -- or too soft, don't be a coward -- and if you want something, just take it, it's good for you -- but _lie and lie and lie_ about the things you want -- _I'm your friend,_ I can do you favors, but you owe me -- _it's too much, you gave me too much_ \-- why didn't you come when I called? -- don't leave me -- don't touch me.

Whatever he wants? He can't move a damned centimeter without violating some spoken or unspoken demand. He and Dean are bound together with ropes of thorns, bleeding every time they twitch.

"Thank you," he says.

Castiel closes and locks the bathroom door. When he takes off his clothes, he folds them carefully and stacks them on the toilet, and when he bends to remove his socks, he notices one of Dean's olive drab traveling bags shoved between toilet and sink. Sam has a nearly identical bag, but this one is certainly Dean's; Castiel recognizes the shaving kit that juts out slightly, black and curved, covered in vinyl that's textured like snakeskin. He crouches down and touches it, pulling it into his hands to turn over and over. Wherever Dean is traveling, he must not intend to be gone long.

Inside, he knows, there is a razor and a toothbrush, but no shaving cream or toothpaste; Dean relies on hotels to provide those things, or steals freely from his brother's supply. He knows there is also a spare lock-pick and a tiny kit with needles and black thread -- for repairing buttons -- and clear plastic thread -- for stitching skin to skin. He knows there are two unlabeled bottles of pills, one whose lid is marked in a red X, the other in green.

He remembers all this because once Dean asked Castiel to hand the kit to him from the backseat of his car, remembers watching carefully as Dean unzipped the case and uncapped the green bottle, fishing out a pill and swallowing it dry. They were stopped at a gas station, waiting while Sam refilled the Impala, and Castiel could easily see each item under the canopy of fluorescent lights.

_What are you ingesting? Castiel asks, and Dean shrugs and says, Fuck if I know._

_That sounds unsafe, Castiel warns him gruffly. Humans do not always seem to recognize how fragile they really are._

_Nah, it's in the green bottle, Dean says. If I run onto something we might need, I hang onto it, so it's just, you know, little bits of this and that. But I always keep the uppers in the green bottle and the painkillers in red. Go and stop, get it? Easy to remember. And now you know, too, if you ever need to._

_I doubt they would have much effect on me, Castiel says._

_Well, maybe someday you wanna be a mensch, Dean says dryly. You might meet a human being who needs something at some point. Information's always good. I think Sam's got a real first-aid kit, you should get him to show you what's in there._

_Sam is a mensch, Castiel says._

_Dean chuckles. Yeah, Sam's who you want on the scene to make things, y'know, better. Guess all I'm really set up to do is give you a sexy scar or a substance abuse problem. But hey, maybe that's what you're looking for, in which case, I'm your huckleberry._

_I don't understand the reference, Castiel says._

_Yeah, well, maybe someday we'll fix that, Dean says, which was a wildly optimistic thing to imagine, at that time, with the flood tides of the Apocalypse rising all around them._

_When Castiel replaces the kit inside the larger bag, he notices a half-pint of clear alcohol, unopened. Is this a painkiller also? Castiel asks._

_Dean laughs shortly. I keep that to clean out open wounds. I mean, you could drink it, if you're into the taste of gasoline and self-loathing. Personally I'd have to be pretty frigging hard up for a fix before I'd put that in my mouth, but that's just me._

Castiel unzips the case. Its contents haven't changed, as far as he can tell. The green bottle is mostly empty. The red one is mostly full; that's the one Castiel uncaps.

Pills, he thinks, are normally intended to be ingested by humans in quantities of one or two. Castiel shakes six into his palm.

The bottle of clear alcohol is still in the bag, or if not the same bottle, an identical one. The seal cracks loudly when Castiel opens it, and he drinks two long mouthfuls, one to carry down the pills, one more just out of a vague sense of competitive misery. Castiel _is_ that hard up for some relief to these constant roiling feelings of rage and regret, thank you very much for noticing.

He takes a third, longer drink, just because he wants to make sure there's enough empty space in the bottle that Dean will notice it right away, even though that's probably wasted effort. After all, he's _leading a civil war in Heaven to stop the second Apocalypse_ , and if Dean barely seems aware of that, Castiel doesn't know if there are any further attention-seeking behaviors that stand a chance.

 _I think you hate me like you hate God right now_ , Dean told him once, apparently under the impression that this was a temporary condition. He's always loved and hated Dean exactly like he loves and hates God, and that just makes good sense to Castiel. Loving them has had precisely the same effect on Castiel's life: an interminable quagmire of violence and disillusionment punctuated by the occasional miracle of transcendent strength and joy. Hating them has spurred him on to great deeds, and to a great Fall.

At least one great Fall. So far. Though the night, as they say, is young.

Castiel steps into the shower when the water runs warm and immediately wraps his hands around the neck of the showerhead, positioning himself directly under the spray. He loves hot showers more than almost anything else he's experienced on Earth, at least more than any other physical experience. They are comparable to kissing (at least to kissing a demon) and to sex (at least to being manually stimulated to orgasm by a man who finds you ridiculous and pitiable), and far easier to obtain. It's the reliability of showers that he likes best: they are in every hotel, in nearly every home, occasionally even in an accessible public place, and whether the water pressure tends high or low, the water is _consistent_ , a prolonged, steady rhythm against his skin that continues on long enough to lull him, most times, into something like rest.

The painkillers and the alcohol are beginning to do their work, unwinding the knots in Castiel, giving both his body and his grace just enough extra space to expand outward, to feel something other than crushed.

He laughs a little, breathlessly. His mouth fills with water, and that feels good, too. Crushed. Of course he is. Hasn't he been for years now?

 _Years_. He can measure this -- friendship, this whatever this is -- in years now, almost three years spent learning Dean and defending him and quarreling with him and resisting him and praying for him. He's never had a human in his life for so long, not even a vessel. Most angels haven't. Most wouldn't risk such weakness.

More than anything, Castiel wants to change that. His brothers and sisters wouldn't be so keen to control and destroy humans if they knew how much nicer it was to gaze into expressive, changeable human eyes, to memorize their smiles of approval, to earn a laugh or a nickname or a fond hand clasping their shoulders.

Castiel sinks down into a crouch, the water running from his flattened hair into his eyes until he bends his neck forward and rakes his hands into the back of his hair. Weakness. Of course it is, and even Dean -- who has a pronounced vested interest in denying the truth -- can plainly see that Castiel's weakness isn't pride or wrath, but lust. He's sick and distorted with the craving for Dean's smile, his husky voice and solid arms and those hands that send fire and glory through Castiel's veins, and none of it is wholesome, none of it is righteous, it's all about wanting to own and be owned by him, wanting to be rewarded for his faithful service, wanting to claim a prize worthy of an Archangel. Nothing about Dean is simple, and all of it bears too much weight, pierces Castiel far too deeply.

This is the healing he promises Heaven? Leading the Host down this road behind him, binding them with thorns and sin to humanity, is this really how he wants to spend his freedom?

Is this what God wanted, when he asked angels to kneel before humankind? Is it the sin of Lucifer to refuse? Did God choose Castiel for this unyielding nightmare of a mission because He knew Castiel would be the quickest of all his kind to get down on his knees?

 _You require as many repairs as ten ordinary angels_ , the voice that sometimes haunts him murmurs bitterly, far away in space and time from this place of temptations. _I can only patch so many holes before nothing about you holds together anymore -- I see where this is headed, you always have your tells -- ever more erratic as you grow stronger --_

Castiel hates that damned voice, whoever she is. But she knows him well.

He stands up and closes his eyes, tilting his face as close as he can to the sharpest, freshest part of the spray at the showerhead. His left hand grips the nozzle to adjust it slightly, and he can't help-- He puts the pad of his right thumb against the outside of his left thumb and traces carefully -- thumb to heel to inner wrist -- with perfect precision, the route that Dean's thumb traced over his skin on the night--

\-- the Impala's steel beneath his back and God's ostentatious cosmos sprawled out overhead _\--_ the night--

\-- Castiel's new miracle-body, fresh from the heart of the Garden and the taste of knowledge --

\-- the night he let his pride take Dean from him while his body howled furious protest--

No. Revise. It was purity, not pride.

He doesn't want an exchange of favors with Dean, or a bargain or a bill of sale as though Castiel were a common crossroads demon. He wants Dean....

To want him so badly he's forced to his knees by it, his strength broken and his predictable, black-and-white world thrown into chaos as thoroughly as Castiel's has been. That's the only way it could ever be pure -- the only _yes_ that Castiel could possibly accept from a Righteous Man.

And it's what Castiel _deserves_ , goddammit.

It's the image that finally forces Castiel into honesty and makes him reach for his cock just as he told himself he wouldn't -- Dean on his knees, looking up at Castiel in shock and confusion, no quick answers for this, just breathless and overpowering want. His eyes -- his shadowed eyelashes -- his mouth opening for Castiel -- his hand burning a mark into the flesh of Castiel's hip -- _the stars and the road and the pink table and the rough burr of his voice (Cass, are you God?) and the taste of whiskey and the warning growl of an engine and the black snakeskin and the red X on a bottle of pills and the bullets in Castiel's chest and the color of his soul, amber under black glass...._

_Dean._

He comes against the tiled wall. He cleans it up while feeling vaguely guilty, but then if Sam thought he wouldn't use the shower for exactly this purpose, he's either far too innocent or far too sure that Castiel is. The latter, probably.

Why do they all think he's an innocent, just because he hasn't mastered the narrative tropes of pornography yet? He's harrowed Hell and been banned from a whorehouse and eaten the literal fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

It's just as well that they do, though. It makes them absurdly easy to deceive.

Castiel doesn't know if it's the drugs, the orgasm, or the shower, but he feels -- clearer now, and a bit ashamed of himself. Yes, Dean is stubborn and reckless, but Castiel's anger toward him has been...disproportionate lately. Dean is a good man. It's just that he's a _man_ , and he's naturally focused on the ordinary concerns of the human sphere, himself and his family. Dean hasn't changed; it's the war that moved on from him.

Heaven has no more use for Dean, so Dean has no more use for Heaven. That's not a crime. That's the peace that Castiel always said he wanted for Dean.

Castiel has been so angry because he doesn't like these glimpses he keeps catching of the truth: that he never really wanted Dean's peaceful retirement, Dean's happiness, as much as he told himself he did. He was willing to do his duty by preserving it, but he never did manage to make himself _want_ it.

Is it a sin to do your best to protect someone you love, but to seethe with grief and resentment all the while? Is it the actions that count, or does God weigh the heart instead?

Who fucking cares, Castiel reminds himself as he turns off the water. God's time is coming to an end; He is gone and Castiel is here. Soon enough a sin will be whatever the hell Castiel says it is.

Unless he fails. There's no doubt he'll burn forever if he fails, but he knew that when he sealed the bargain with Crowley with his very first kiss.

Before he leaves the bathroom, Castiel pours out half the pills in Dean's red-capped bottle and sticks them in his coat pocket. Dean doesn't need all of them anyway. They aren't healthy for humans.

 


	10. The Man Who Knew Too Much

"Why are you here?" Dean asks, and that is an entirely valid question.

Castiel does not have a...productive answer to it.

 _Because I can't make God listen to me, and you are the next best thing?_ That will only make Dean angrier. _To tell you I've made mistakes, but they can still be rectified, with your help?_ That will sound too much like Castiel intends to abort this mission, which is false. _I have no choice; you are the only painkiller that still has any effect on me?_ Another lecture, probably, another hymn in praise of the very freedom that is devouring Castiel from the inside out.

"I want you to understand," he says, although it's already clear that he won't get what he wants and likely shouldn't have come at all.

"Oh, believe me, I get it. Blah, blah, Raphael, right?"

Yes, blah, blah, the rectification of the eternal cosmic order and the redemption or destruction of Heaven and Earth. Last year's news, Castiel knows.

Dean will never understand. He is a human, and when the jaws of the wolf are not around his throat, he can't see any further than his own fingertips.

He can't see. He can't act. He can't save Castiel. He never could.

Why does Castiel come here again and again, so sure he's the only thing that can? A symptom of his madness, he supposes.

"I'm doing this for you, Dean. I'm doing this because of you."

It's the highest praise Castiel knows how to give -- _you gave me purpose when everything else had failed, I want to be what you are, I believe things can change for the better because you changed me for the better, you told me Creation was worth risking everything for, you proved to me that love succeeds where obedience fails._

He should never underestimate Dean's ability to read an insult into a declaration of love.

"Don't," Dean barks at him, and for a moment Castiel steps back, utterly forgetting that Dean can't possibly harm him. "Don't. I didn't make this happen. I don't _make you_ do things just by existing."

"That's not what I-- "

Dean advances on him -- it's not _coming toward_ him, that would be different. He's found his line of attack and is advancing. "Is this why you've been pushing me away since Stull?" he asks, so angry his voice is almost a snarl. "Have you been running for Queen of Hell ever since we put Lucifer away?"

"No -- no, I -- " Castiel doesn't understand how Dean managed to wrong-foot him so quickly, driving all his rational arguments out of his head.

Can't possibly harm him? Ridiculous. Dean is the only thing on any plane of existence that can break Castiel's will, that can force him down when he's almost at the zenith of his rise.

Castiel was a fool to come here. This weakness of the heart could be the end of everything, and Castiel would have no one but himself to blame.

"I've been trying to save Heaven, you know that," Castiel manages to say.

Dean scoffs. "And now it's Raphael's fault again. Is it ever your fault, Cass? Is anything ever your fault? You want to be a leader, you want to be a _man_? Take some fucking responsibility for your own actions. _You_ lied to me. No one else."

"Because you always think you have a better way!" Castiel's fear is melting away rapidly. It's only Dean. He's been angry at Castiel before, and God willing, he will be again. God willing, this is a manageable situation. "You're so damned arrogant! This is _my_ mission, _I_ was chosen for it, I'm the one who sees the possibilities and the consequences! I bowed to you when you were the Michael-Sword because I agreed that it was your right to choose your own path, but this is _mine_ to choose, and I never promised I would bow to you forever. This is mine. I know what I'm doing."

Dean scowls for a moment, his thoughts obviously scattering in every direction at once, trying to figure out which angle to contradict Castiel on first. "I'm not gonna logic you, okay?" he finally says. "I'm saying...don't. Just cause. I'm asking you not to. That's it."

"I don't serve you," Castiel says wearily. _God willing_ is, as ever, an impotent prayer. God is willing to see the two of them tear each other to shreds, willing to see Castiel crawl back to Earth and ask to be let in again, willing to see Heaven riven in half and humanity immolated by the wrath of angels. God is always _willing_ , whatever the outcome, because God fundamentally does not fucking care how the story ends.

Castiel keeps forgetting that.

"I'm not giving you a fucking order, Cass, I'm _asking_ you. Me. Forget Raphael, forget Crowley, forget all of it. There's no one here but you and me, so if you really do--" He breaks off in frustration and paces across the floor. Castiel wants to turn, wants to follow with his eyes and hoard these last moments of -- relative peace, but he exercises discipline.

When did _peace_ become a shouting match with Dean Winchester? But he knows that when they are enemies bent on one another's destruction, the loss of these foolish, prideful arguments will weigh on him as much as the loss of the pink table where Castiel was happy and each one of the kisses they never shared.

"You're my friend," Dean says to his back, "you're my -- you're like family to me, you're my people, and you know what that's worth to me. If any of it is worth anything at all to you, then I need...." It's as much as Castiel can bear, and he finally turns his face to Dean and is rewarded with a quick spark of desperate hope in Dean's eyes. "You gotta trust me, man."

He does know what it's worth. He knows that _my family, my people_ is everything Dean knows about love, that Dean is dredging up everything he has to offer and offering it all.

And it's so small. It weighs so little next to all the power to do real good in the world that Castiel could reach out and grasp, if he puts away this tiny, pretty thing that Dean has laid in the palm of his hand.

How can it be righteous to throw away Creation for one damaged soul, for a man who can't admit even now that Castiel is unlike any friend or kinsman or comrade-in-arms he's ever had? A worthy God wouldn't take such a limited view, wouldn't he?

"I can't," Castiel says. "I'm sorry."

Dean watches him a moment. He looks so much older than when Castiel first met him. Finally he drags his hand over his face, the gesture he often makes when he is confronting the inevitable and reconciling himself to it.

When he meets Castiel's eyes again, Castiel expects to see hardness, a shield -- Dean preparing to meet him next time as an opponent who was only long ago a friend. But his eyes don't look like that at all. He's searching Castiel for something -- for some ground to meet on, for some sign of the Castiel who would once have been vulnerable to this heartfelt appeal. Castiel doesn't know if Dean sees what he's looking for, but he sees enough to draw him closer.

"Cass," he says, deep in his lower register, and he rests his hand on Castiel's shoulder, tilted to brush against his neck. Layers of clothing separate his hand from Castiel's skin, but Castiel still feels the connection snap closed, like a deadbolt lock sliding into place. He fights back a shudder. "Cass -- you have to say this right to my face. I won't believe you if you can't say it. Is this really where we are now? Crowley over me?"

"Don't say it like that," Castiel pleads. They're so close now in the darkness, and it takes all the discipline Castiel possesses to keep from moving still closer, from sliding into place in Dean's arms. "This is pragmatic, not personal. You know that if I had the luxury of listening to my heart-- "

"Your _heart_ , Cass, are you kidding me?" He doesn't sound angry anymore. He sounds almost sad. He drops his other hand between them, brushing aside Castiel's coat and suit jacket to lay his palm on Castiel's chest, as if verifying that Castiel does possess the organ in question. It sounds louder to Castiel, echoing in the hollow of Dean's palm. "What good is your heart to either of us if you're just going to ignore it every time you can think of a faster way to get what you want?" No, it's not-- that's not what Castiel is doing, but before he can raise an objection, Dean's left hand tightens a little, his thumb brushing against Castiel's throat, and Castiel's voice is gone. "You keep coming at me all sentimental," Dean murmurs, "but that's not what I need from you, that romance shit. You know me better than that. All I need is your loyalty."

He's standing so close now that Castiel is conscious of the need to tilt up to look into Dean's eyes. Tentatively, he reaches up and brushes his fingertips along Dean's cheekbone, and Dean's eyes drop, lashes sweeping low. It makes him look uncertain, even though he can't possibly be, even though they both surely know--

 _Everyone in this room knows exactly what your weakness is_ , he hears clearly in his mind. _Same as it ever was._

Castiel's mistake, then. Not an approach, just another advance. Castiel is the one to blame for momentarily underestimating Dean's gifts as a tactician.

Castiel leans even closer and a little to the side and whispers in Dean's ear, "And you're willing to barter for that, I take it?" Dean goes stiff and guarded in an instant and begins to lean away, but he freezes completely when Castiel grabs the back of his neck. He meets Dean's startled eyes and says with all the cold Divinity that he remembers once situating himself so securely inside, "I'm afraid I'm too _sentimental_ for that to work on me, Dean. I won't haggle over the price of what you've refused to freely give me. I still have some honor."

Dean shoves him away; Castiel allows it. "Get out," Dean says. "I don't want to see you in my house anymore, coming around to talk to me like we're friends. We're not."

"Then fix those," Castiel says shortly, gesturing at the windows. "Your Enochian is all but illegible."

If Castiel knows Dean, his next words are a threat of some kind, but Castiel doesn't remain on Earth to hear them.

 

He doesn't often pray anymore, but it's a habit that he hasn't been entirely able or willing to give up. Usually it's reflexive, a linguistic tic that all angels share even though what they all know but never say is that their prayers have gone unanswered for millennia now.

Only when he sits in someone else's Heaven, watching the red kite catch the updraft that allows it to defy gravity, is he still moved to pray with something like faith.

"I know you're angry with me, Father," he says.

But he doesn't know that. Everything Castiel has done looks to the naked eye exactly like blasphemy and rebellion, but -- he doesn't feel Fallen. So maybe it's all permitted.

Maybe he's always been right when he claims that he's only following the mission God saved him from oblivion to complete. He's only believed that about half the time, but...maybe it was always true nonetheless.

"You know I never wanted this, but the vision I saw -- the things I learned on Earth.... Was I supposed to ignore them? You saved me after I defied Michael, so doesn't that mean that defying Raphael is Your will-- "

God's will. God willing. Right. Castiel keeps forgetting.

The clouds drift above him. They always drift just like this, eternally headed the same direction at the same speed on a plane where there are no directions and nothing goes anywhere at all. He misses the clouds of Earth, which can be scryed to divine the future -- a future where rainstorms might or might not come. Where there _is_ a future, and things change. Where Castiel changed.

But that's not true, is it? His memories are ever-shifting, fragmentary in places, but he thinks it wasn't on Earth that he changed, but in Hell. He remembers Michael warning him, seeing the cracks already start to blossom in his grace, the urges of his heart start to push him toward-- Disobedience. Destruction. Love.

Michael knew his weakness, and if Michael knew, God knew.

_I told Michael you were in no fit condition..._

Much as Castiel loathes the voice that's burrowed into his memory and caught there, she's hardly ever wrong about him.

"Is this a tragedy?" Castiel asks God. "Was this my hamartia -- that I loved him, that I wanted so much to save him that my perspective became limited, like a human's? But I was always taught that You -- that You loved humans, that they were Your greatest creation, so -- was that it? Was it arrogance to believe that an angel had the right to feel love? Did You only create that for them, were we never worthy of it?"

Michael thought as much. Michael told him exactly that, and Castiel pretended to listen, pretended to obey, while his thoughts all the while were on returning to Earth -- to his mission -- to his righteous man.

Of all the infuriating things, if _Michael_ was the one who had the answer all along....

No. Castiel won't accept that.

If it's true, then it's a fundamental flaw in Creation. Castiel would _rather_ be damned for agreeing with the King of Hell than secure his place in Heaven for capitulating to the Commander of the Host.

Sometimes Castiel thinks he's doing everything he possibly can to be cast into the Pit -- as if he'll only be satisfied once he's finally there. It's perplexing behavior. He wishes he were the logical person he used to believe he was.

He wishes so many things were as he once believed they were.

"I think I could -- I could make better choices, if I understood...." Castiel sighs and leans his elbows onto his knees, tipping his head into his hands to scrub through his hair. "All right. If You wanted me to have free will, then You want me to answer these questions for myself. All right, I just have to -- think it through. If all of this began when Michael chose me to harrow Hell--"

_(you again, Castiel? It's always you...)_

He shakes the voice out of his head. Forces himself not to hear it. "If Michael chose me -- with or without Your approval -- then why? I had some experience on Earth, some seasoning in battle, but others had as much. It can't have been chance; Michael was not the sort to rely on chance. What was different about me?"

Dean had a theory about that. _He picked you because you have a heart, and the others don't._

Is that true? It could well be. Dean is not a trusting man, and he's not easily deceived. Even if an angel's dignity would allow it to pretend to care for Dean, he would immediately see through the ruse. And Dean is stubborn -- God Almighty, if Castiel knows nothing else, he knows that Dean is stubborn. Only love seems to affect him; only Sam and the memory of his father seem to have the power to sway Dean when his will is set. So the logical conclusion, the conclusion Michael must also have reached, is that persuading Dean Winchester to give his life for the Final Battle would require him to love the one who asks it, and that pretending love and loyalty would never earn love from Dean in return. It had to be real.

And if Dean is right about the hearts of angels, that means it had to be Castiel.

"Was that my mission all along?" he demands of the placid sky. "Not to guard him, but to love him so much that when I asked him to die for Heaven, he'd do it? _Are You fucking insane?"_

Because of course it could never have happened that way. Even Castiel, naive as he is, has always known that love can only make you want to sacrifice yourself, not devour your beloved.

"It was an impossible mission, wasn't it? I had to love him to win him to our side, but once I loved him, I could never have led him to the slaughter. It doesn't work that way!" Does God even understand this extremely basic logic of the heart? Is the God who created all of them even a creature capable of-- "I thought You rewarded me for sacrificing everything to complete my mission, that You entrusted me with this great task because I'd already proven myself, but that was never true at all, was it? I failed my first mission. No one could have succeeded, all anyone could've done was--"

Was come apart under the strain. Was become something new in all of Creation -- a half-Fallen angel, unwelcome on Earth and unfit for Heaven.

"Michael _broke me_ when he gave me to Dean!" Castiel yells at the great, consuming silence. "If You had some larger purpose in mind for me, why didn't You do something before it was too late, before I ended up like this? _Why didn't You protect me?"_

There is no answer, of course.

When will Castiel learn to stop badgering God for answers that God has no interest in providing? So many millions of years, and he's still such a child.

God gave him life and power when all logic dictated that Castiel's fate was death and judgment. That's the only answer, the only sign, he's received directly from God in all of this, and that's -- a good sign? That means that God trusts him, that God approves of the manner in which he's tried to play this unwinnable game?

"Was that the sign, Father?" Castiel asks wearily. "That I'm here at all, that I'm alive, is that -- Your way of telling me that I can do this?"

What a nice idea.

Maybe God is tired of being God. His actions -- or lack thereof -- certainly imply as much. Maybe all God has been doing all this time is waiting for an angel so profoundly broken that he doesn't see anything particularly wrong with wanting to replace God.

"I'll do this unless You stop me," Castiel prays, and he feels sheer fury forcing his wings out, unfurling on the electric surge of his defiance. "Unless You -- say something, or do something, unless You give me a sign -- I'll finish what I've begun, and there will be no coming home, not for either of us. I'll tear it all down, and You won't recognize the world I'll raise up in its place. You're not capable of imagining what it would look like -- a world where even the angels are not punished for love. There will be no place for You in my world when I am God, so if You have -- if You have a problem with that, say so now. Say something now, or I'll...."

There is only silence.

When Castiel stands, he towers over the landscape of an eternal Tuesday afternoon. "Fine," he says, and his voice rolls like thunder. The clouds begin to darken and draw together; for the first time, the weather is changing. "Then just sit and watch." He could be speaking to God or Dean or Michael; he doesn't care, it doesn't make any difference. None of them are listening, but they are free to make that mistake.

 _Be good up there_ , Dean says in his memory. _Show 'em how it's done._

None of them have any idea what Castiel has left to show them.

 


	11. Meet the New Boss

"So you see," Cass says, "I saved you."

If that's the way Cass is looking at things, then good. Good, because it doesn't matter in the fucking slightest what's true or not, only whether there's still enough _Cass_ somewhere in there for Dean to work with. His brain is spinning at about a quadrillion RPM and the smell of the blood soaking this warehouse is kicking up some hard-core fight-or-flight shit that can only be a distraction right now, but Dean has two skill sets, and one of them is talking his way out of trouble.

With an Olympic gold fucking medal in talking Cass around, so as long as it's Cass -- as long as it's _Cass_ in there -- this is doable.

Dean's not gonna die here. He's not. None of them are.

"I know you did, Cass," he says, pitching his voice as softly as he can, like he's reading Cass a fucking bedtime story. "You always do, buddy."

"You doubted me. You fought against me. I told you, Dean, I told you that if you'd only trust me--"

"You were right," Dean says. "I'm sorry, I -- you know I'm bad at trust, but that's my fault, not yours. You always come through, and I shoulda given you the benefit of the doubt. Now let me come through for you, okay? Let me help defuse you before you get hurt."

Cass is fidgety, his eyes darting around, his fingers pulling restlessly at his own hand. It's not a great sign. "Defuse me?" he says. "No, no. This isn't going away, Dean. This is how things are now. This is who I am."

"It's not, though," Dean says. "Cass, it's -- I know you can't see it, but it's scrambling your brain."

"You're angry because you lost. Because I have the power you thought I shouldn't have -- I didn't deserve --"

Dean doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, and that's bad. Exploding-in-a-tsunami-of-viscera bad. "I'm not angry, Cass--"

" _Stop calling me that_ ," Cass says. "That's not my name."

Yeah, Dean's gonna die here.

"Sorry," he says. "Castiel. I'm not angry, why -- why would I be angry? You saved the world. I'm just -- listen, maybe you don't want to hear this from me right now because -- because we've been fighting, but forget all that, that's just -- whatever, we're two stubborn guys, right? We're gonna fight sometimes. But I'm still your friend, and I need you to believe me when I tell you, you do not have a handle on this like you think you do. You're gonna get hurt, and I don't-- I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben, and now I've lost Sam. Please, I need -- I can't lose you."

 _All good lies_ , Dean's father once told him, dry as a dust-devil, _have the virtue of being true._

"Don't talk to me like we're friends," Cass says. "You abandoned me. You stopped answering my prayers, all of our prayers. You only want me as a weapon, you only care about me when there's a war to be fought, you made me into something that shouldn't even exist, and you're still doing it, you're using these words -- these memories -- using them against me, insinuating that there's something to hope for. All you care about are the souls. This isn't about _losing me_ , it's about stripping me of this power because it's power that I control, not you. No. No. I'm done with hope. I'm done with faith. I'm done obeying and done with an eternity on my knees waiting for my reward. I don't want friends, I don't want family, and I don't want you. I'm stronger without any of it."

That does not give Dean a whole lot to work with. He doesn't know what kind of comeback he would've managed, if all of a sudden Sam hadn't come looming up behind Cass and plunged an angel blade into his back.

Cass looks... maybe if Dean's being generous, a little startled by it.

It takes Cass a few seconds to react, a few seconds that every single one of them -- three supposedly seasoned, world-saving, badass hunters -- completely wastes by standing around like gaping morons. When Cass finally pulls the literal knife out of his literal back and lets it clatter to the floor, clean as a whistle, he twists his head around and says, "Sam. I'm glad you made it." The movement and his voice are both -- off. Mechanical, almost. A minute ago he was almost incoherent with anger, and now he's just -- not. Not anything.

Dean didn't expect this situation to take a _downward_ turn.

"I know you've missed some critical developments," Cass says, "but please try to keep up. Weapons built to destroy the servants of Heaven cannot be turned against its master. You're frightened, Sam. You all are, and that is understandable. You're accustomed to the previous God, who was capricious and unjust, whose punishments fell routinely on the undeserving, who remained passive in the face of suffering. That era is over now. My laws will be simple and fairly applied, and humans of goodwill such as yourselves will not find them onerous, but they will be enforced. Do you understand me, Sam?"

"I-- no," Sam blurts out. "Not -- not really."

"Ah," Cass says. "Well. I'll make this simpler, then. I am the Lord your God. If you wish to stand against me, I will destroy you. If you bow down before me and profess your love, I will forgive you. I give you perfect freedom to choose."

The whole thing is just so _batshit fucking insane_ that, honestly, Dean would probably stand there stuck in gaping-moron gear until Cass got bored and fragged him, if he'd been here on his own. Fortunately, he's here with Bobby, who's got enough goddamn horse-sense for the three of them. "Well, all right, then," Bobby says, like this whole thing is no big deal, like Cass just announced they're all going to be using a chore chart from now on or putting quarters in the swear jar, and then he just does the rational thing and gets down on his knees. "This good, or do you want the whole forehead-to-the-carpet thing?" Cass doesn't answer him. He just looks a little blank, like even he didn't expect this to go over quite that easily. "Guys?" Bobby says to him and Sam, and Bobby's keeping his cool, but Dean can tell there's fear in his eyes. He thinks one or both of them is going to pull some kind of Braveheart move, that he's about to watch his kids go out in a blaze of pointless glory.

It's kinda flattering, how he thinks they're still on their feet because they're honorable, not because they're stunned stupid.

Bowing down isn't a big deal. Dean's knees are uncomfortable against the cold cement, but he doesn't really have an emotional reaction to it like Bobby thought he was going to -- like Dean maybe would've expected to himself, honestly. It's not knowing what comes next that he doesn't like, not being able to game out Cass' next move, and he's stuck with that, kneeling or standing, so who cares.

Professing his love is.... Hey, Dean is gonna do what needs to be done to get them a chance of getting out of here alive, but this feels like a fucking minefield if he's ever been in one. What's he supposed to do, just -- say it? Should he say it like a fancy prayer or something, throw in a bunch of _thy much-appreciated mercy_ and _thine eyes, which art a really pretty shade of blue, Cass, I swear_? Everything he thinks of, he can imagine Cass getting pissed off by, either because he thinks Dean's making fun of him or because--

How the hell is he supposed to talk to this psycho? He's already in the doghouse with Cass because -- he guesses he's been coming off -- insincere or something, like he only acts like he likes Cass to string him along for favors, which isn't true. Obviously. But if Cass has that set in his head now, how is Dean supposed to suck up without making things worse?

Silence isn't going to keep working for long, though, because he can see Cass starting to get jittery again, wringing his hand and his thumb, his weird evil-zen thing folding up on his face into a scowl. "No, no," Cass mutters. "This isn't -- what it should be. You fear me. Fear isn't respect, it isn't love. I want...."

"Cass--" Sam tries.

"Sam, you have nothing to say to me. You stabbed me in the back." Dean kinda sees his point on that one.

And then his shakes are gone again, as fast as they came, and when Cass swivels to lock his attention onto Dean, he's cold and composed again. He reminds Dean of Lucifer -- not in a fancy metaphorical way, but of the time he met Lucifer in a vision and the guy said to him in a voice that wasn't his brother's, _I like you, Dean. I get what the other angels see in you._

The other angels. Because that's what the Devil is, and now it's what Cass is, too, right? A Fallen angel, trying to seize power from God. Dean's an idiot if he gives Cass an inch that he wouldn't give to Lucifer, because this is the same fight all over again, it's no different. It feels different, but it's not.

"Dean Winchester." His voice even sounds like a snake -- not like a hiss, but like the body of a snake, the words slithering over the ground toward him, all predatory bone and muscle. Dean's skin starts to crawl as Cass takes a few steps toward him, and it doesn't help at all that Cass' voice goes into a gentle lilt as he says, "You're right, Dean, you're so right. I don't deserve your respect. I haven't earned it."

"I...didn't say that," Dean manages.

"Be quiet now." Dean's jaw clamps shut so hard that he's not sure if he's under some kind of spell, or if this is a panic attack, or what. He just knows he can't say anything. He can barely breathe. All he can see is Cass -- or God or the Devil or -- whoever this is, stalking him, staring down at him with Cass' blue, blue eyes. Cass reaches out and strokes his fingers deep into Dean's hair and then just leaves them there, holding Dean by the crown of the head. "I have not given you the respect you deserve, either. I dreamed of making you my concubine; I see now how far beneath you those dreams always were. I can do better for you, my friend. I can make you the apostle of my new Creation instead."

Dean's jaw feels like it's made of marble, but he shifts it a little, side to side, and then he thinks maybe he can open his mouth, which he can, and maybe even speak. "There are -- so many words there that we need to talk about, I don't even know where to start."

Cass smiles, and that helps. It helps because it's not Cass' smile, and Dean's fine with being menaced by _strange_ lunatics, that's the job. He can handle that. "You're so clever, Dean. You could always make me laugh." Dean can't off the top of his head remember one single time Cass ever laughed at one of his jokes, but maybe he means on the inside. "I want you to be the one to announce my coming, to tell humankind that they need not fear God any longer." He moves his hand from Dean's hair to his face, tracing ghostly soft along Dean's skin until his fingers find Dean's cheekbone and linger there, stroking back and forth. Nothing in his expression indicates that he's even noticed he's fucking _petting_ Dean. "Tell them everything: how you refused me, how you struggled against me, and how I forgave and rewarded you in spite of it all. You've always had the common touch; people will listen to you. Tell them I've treated you well, treated you with respect, and all I ever asked of you was your loyalty."

"That's all, huh?" Dean says. _Oh, all I ever asked you for was, like, every_ _thing, forever. No big._

Cass smiles, and this time it doesn't help at all. He drags his thumb down Dean's lip and murmurs, "And your love. But I know that is not to be forced. It will come in time, I know it will."

Right. So. They were bound to end up here sooner or later, although Dean thinks he would've preferred to hash out the intimate details of their fucked-up non-affair affair without his entire family as an audience. "Cass, come on," he says. "This isn't you."

The Cass he knew was -- persnickity about stuff like this. _Twice_ , Dean has all but stripped naked and thrown himself dick-first at Cass, and both times Cass got all starchy and offended and pretty much out-and-out called Dean a whore. He knows Cass' blood runs as red as the next corporeal entity's, but Dean's Cass -- the real Cass -- would never in a million years try to get Dean into bed by way of a _job offer_. That's the opposite of how Cass rolls.

"Not the Castiel you knew, it's true," Cass agrees, shrugging like it's nothing. "I have ascended. I have been purified."

Okay, this is it. Dean's done. "I'm not going to be your -- your apostle-slash-slave," he says. It's easy. He's not under any kind of spell, he's just been weirdly chickenshit about standing up to a monster, which isn't how Dean intends to die after all these years. "And I'm sure as hell not going to be your harem girl or whatever, and this? What you're doing right now? This doesn't turn into love. Not now, not 'in time,' not ever."

Cass ain't smiling anymore. "You speak to me as though you would somehow rather I killed you."

"Maybe I would." He hears a growl that might be Bobby swearing at him under his breath, but he can't pull his focus from Cass. Dean is Schroedinger's hunter right now, not alive and not dead until Cass decides which one he is, so if he's gonna fucking do anything to save himself, he has to do it now and do it right. No distractions from the peanut gallery.

"You don't-- How can you mean that? I don't understand you, Dean."

And the bitch of it is, he probably doesn't. Cass is juiced up to the gills, but he's the same clueless dork he always was. Dammit, what made Cass think he was in any way equipped to _rule the universe_? The universe is a whole lot more complicated than Dean Winchester is. "You promised to fix Sam."

"If you stood down! The deal I offered you -- the terms were fair -- I tried to see that we both prospered from this new order." He's twitching again. Breaking down a little, maybe. Dean wishes he knew if that worked to his advantage or not.

"It's not too late, Cass. We still don't -- don't have to be enemies, if you just...."

Just what? If Cass suddenly up and says, _hey, sorry, my mistake, guys_ , what happens? They just forgive him, call for a do-over on the past year, move everyone back into Bobby's clubhouse and start going on adventures like they all trust each other and nobody's ever broken anyone else's heart?

He'll say what he has to say to get them all out of here, but it's too late. It's way too fucking late.

"My Father would have punished you for this rebellion," Cass says, his voice booming out in a pretty credibly godlike way. "If He were here, He would cast you into the Pit and forget all about you." It's a threat, more or less, but Dean still takes it as a hopeful sign. Pissed-at-Dean Cass is -- just, you know, Cass. It's the sugar-sweet one who glides like a snake that Dean's figured out to watch for.

Cass reaches out again, but this time when he cradles Dean's cheek in his hand, Dean's not all that scared. Things could still go south, sure. Things can always go south in a heartbeat. But he's finally remembering that he's not just a hunter face-to-face with a monster who's got the high ground.

He's the motherfucking Michael-Sword, and angels don't kill him because he's -- some kind of angel meth or something, he's the habit they can't seem to kick. Well, they can eat it; Michael never got what he wanted from Dean, and Cass won't, either. Dean's cheap, but he ain't easy.

"I am not my Father," Cass says coldly, letting go of Dean and turning away. "I have business elsewhere; pray that this is the last time you see me." And then he's gone in a feathery flounce, which is the most Cass he's been in months.

"Am I the only person in the world without daddy issues?" Dean complains as he struggles to his feet.

Bobby snorts and says, "Yup, that's you," which Dean chooses to take as totally non-sarcastic.

"And the two of you," Dean says, glaring back and forth between them, "were you just going to sit there and watch me get Bad-Touched By an Angel? Do I have to do everything around here?"

"I don't think anyone who's not you is going to get through to Cass now," Sam says.

Dean brushes at the knees of his jeans, which are streaked with some kind of black mold that would probably give him cancer if he weren't going to get his ass struck by lightning way sooner than that. "Why am I always stuck being the Cass Whisperer?"

Sam narrows his eyes at him and says, "Don't ask stupid questions."

 

Sam thinks they should try talking to Cass some more. Dean thinks that's the dumbest idea he's ever heard in his entire life. They fight about it for days.

There's plenty of time. They go over it again and again, the same arguments, sometimes the same actual words, just filling up time while they wait for news of the next miracle. A warlord toppled, a water supply purified. A struggling inner-city homeless shelter turns overnight into a palace. An isolated reform school where every single member of the staff is found hanging from the rafters. A two-year drought ended. Three hundred human trafficking victims returned to their families. A pirate fleet destroyed, or a puppy mill, or a hedge fund. A shit-ton of churches, because apparently Cass really has some points he wants to make clear about loyalty to the old regime.

"So what's your plan, just nothing?" Sam demands. "This is just the world we live in now?"

"Yeah, Sam, this is the world we live in now," Dean says. "What do you want me to say? You never asked me to come up with a plan before, when it was the old God throwing around earthquakes and child molesters and shit like that, all willy-nilly. Because guess what? That's not the job I signed on for."

"We can't pretend we're not at least a little responsible for this," Sam says.

"I'm not fucking pretending. I don't make Cass' decisions for him, and in case you missed a memo, Cass don't exactly take advice from me anymore."

Hours later, some Noah's Ark theme park in Kentucky goes up in a massive column of flame, killing ninety-five tourists and employees. The news report plays on the tv while the three of them eat dinner, and Dean can't hear any of the details over the ringing in his ears, and the sound of Cass' voice saying _Dean, how do you do it? I only wanted to do what you've done...._

A helicopter gets footage of the blast site. Black scorch-marks gouge the earth, letters thirty feet long that say LIARS. Ash and embers are still drifting from the sky.

Dean goes and sits in his car that night. She'll run if she has to now, but there's still plenty of work to be done. She looks worse from the outside -- with her paint job ruined, she looks like she's been skinned alive -- but sitting in the front seat, he can almost pretend she's no more worn-down and worked-over than she was during the years when Dean was a kid, when Dad was running her without a break, too harried and, okay, too drunk to do much more than maintain her.

He doesn't like to think too hard about those years. What's the point? They weren't great, but nobody's life is ponies and sno-cones from the cradle to the grave. And things did get better, which Dean can admit to himself -- never out loud, but to himself -- was mostly Sam's doing. Sam wasn't the pushover that Dean was, and all those screaming fights and those heart-stopping weeks of vanishing on his own.... Okay, Dean would've given anything at the time to put a stop to them, but...they did help. Dad had his flaws, but he loved them both, and it seemed like the realization that he could lose one of his sons forever did motivate him to shape up.

Those last couple of years they were all together.... Dean gives the old man credit, he really does. He sobered up, he took an interest in their lives -- not their training, but just regular dumb Dad stuff, like teasing them about girls and teaching them how to alter a suit and letting himself get ganged up on during Settlers of Catan.

That's what he's thinking about when Sam slides into the car next to him and softly says, "What are you thinking about?"

"Settlers of Catan," Dean says with a little smile. Sam snorts a reluctant laugh. "You think he let us win?"

"I know he let us win," Sam says. "Nobody forgets to invest in bricks that many times in a row."

"You know we only ever played it because you liked it."

"You liked it, too. And yeah, I know. Everything was game nights and movie marathons and hugs that year. You know it was because he was trying to get me to give up college, right?"

Dean sighs. It was and it wasn't. But given the choice between _Dad tried to fix things so I'd be happy staying_ and _Dad was only nice to me when he figured out force wouldn't work anymore_ \-- well, Dean knows how Sam is always going to tell the story in his head. He wishes they could just...agree that both those things are true, to a certain degree, and just let it all go.

They're not kids anymore, after all. "He was really proud of you, you know. The scholarship and everything."

"I know," Sam says, and he sounds a little brusque, but nothing worse than that. "And you know that he had my phone number the whole four years, right?"

"Yeah," Dean says. "Yeah, I know. He should've -- I should've -- "

"Hey. We're way past that. Where's this coming from, Dean?"

Dean doesn't even really know. From working on the car so much, he guesses, like cracking her apart piece by piece releases the memories into the air.

From losing Cass, which hurts like nothing in his life has ever hurt except for losing his parents.

Instead of dwelling pointlessly on that, he says, "How about you, how you holding up?"

Sam shrugs, which means not great. "You know how it is," he says, which sounds like vague nonsense, but as a matter of fact Dean does know exactly how it is.

 _You wouldn't be feeling any of this if it weren't for Cass_ , is the story in Dean's head, but he knows that Sam tells it to himself like, _Cass saved us both from Hell_. Dean doesn't know how they managed to flip the script this time, why Sam is the pushover and Dean's the one who can't let this go and doesn't even want to try.

"I hear what you're saying about us not being responsible," Sam says. Oh, Christ, _I hear what you're saying_ means that the I-statements come next. Dean wants a drink if he's going to have to sit through a Moment. "I just think...if he's family, you'll never really forgive yourself for giving up on him. Even if it's pointless, even if he's already too far gone -- don't you want to know for sure that you -- left it all on the floor? I know how you are with the people you love, Dean. You show up for them whether it's gonna do any good or not."

"He's gone, Sammy," Dean says, surprised by how hard the words are to get out. He sounds like he's hacking them up. "This -- thing out there, this thing who's killing children -- it's just his ghost. I don't wanna talk to him. If I knew how to salt and burn him, then that's what I'd do to help Cass, just like I'd expect any of you to do for me if I ever go vengeful spirit."

Sam sighs. "Okay. Yeah. I hear you."

 

Salt and burn isn't an option, but the idea sticks in Dean's head, and goddamn if he doesn't wind up exactly where he swore he wouldn't go, trying to figure out how to kill God.

He threatened to do that once before, but he wasn't really in his right mind at the time. He's probably not now, either, but, well....

He'd expect one of his people to do the same for him. So that's all there is to it.

Dean's not as dumb as he looks, and he doesn't miss the dramatic irony in having to go to Crowley for help, when partnering up with Crowley is the exact thing that, if he'd just been able to forgive Cass for it two weeks ago, might've made all the difference in the world.

That still doesn't mean Dean thinks any of it is his fault or his responsibility to fix, but...if he had it all to do over again.... Well, that's just called learning and growing as a person, right?

So a little demon-dealing, some light home invasion, and some seriously edgeplay binding magic later, Dean is officially in charge of life and Death, at least for a hot minute. This is the kind of power that goes to some people's heads, he guesses, but mainly he's just hoping to get out of this without wetting himself, because trying to stir up a kaiju fight between Death and God is maybe the stupidest risk Dean's ever taken. Does it even count as a risk when every possible outcome basically ensures him an immortal and all-powerful enemy? That's not so much a "risk" as it is a "really bad idea."

Cass seems to think so, too, and there's something warmingly familiar about the aggrieved tone he takes when he shows up. "Unbelievable," he says, and it almost makes Dean laugh out loud. God doesn't believe in Dean Winchester.

"Believe it, sunshine," Bobby says.

Cass looks at him briefly, then shakes his head and looks back at Dean. "How can you hate me so much?" he says. "I _spared_ you. I tried so hard...." He does that thing he was doing before, raking his fingertips over his forearm, only this time they catch on what look like puncture wounds or burn marks, sinking into his own flesh and peeling. He doesn't look like he feels anything at all when he does it. "I could have killed you at any time," he says, his voice gruffer and less plaintive than before, "but I wanted...." He trails off with a confused frown, as if he can't remember where he was going with that, because sometimes it seems like Cass is the only sentient being in the universe who doesn't know what Cass wants.

"Yeah," Dean says shortly, "got that, thanks. You know I always love it when you call me pretty, but your idea of romance could use a little less massacre."

"Your vessel is meaningless to me," Cass says, and he almost sounds like he's gotten his damn feelings hurt again. The old God was nothing to write home about, but fuck, at least he wasn't a sad thirteen-year-old permanently getting rejected at the school dance. "I saw your soul in Hell. At that moment, I wanted to give you the world, Dean. I still do. I just have to make it worthy of you first."

So that's weird and awkward. "The making of worlds is a god's business," Death says.

"I am God!" Cass shouts, sulky to smitey in point-five seconds. That's the reason, Dean reminds himself, that this has to be done. It doesn't matter who's responsible; Dean's put too much effort into saving this sucky world to leave it up to Cass' goddamn moods.

"You look awfully like a mutated angel to me," Death says.

He does look kind of like he's been bussed in from a nuclear wasteland. The marks on his hands and his face kind of -- sizzle a little, fire and skin falling off of him like ember and ash. "When I've finished my work, I'll repair myself," Cass says.

"You think you can, because you think you're simply under the weight of all those souls, yes?" Death says. "But that's not the worst problem. There are things much older than souls in Purgatory, and you gulped those in, too."

"Irrelevant," Cass says. "I control them."

Death, who hasn't shown the slightest flicker of emotion so far, narrows his eyes and almost spits out, "Vain child. What makes you think you have the power to contain in your very body the forces that your father built a world to lock away?"

"Someone has to! Someone has to put it all right! We've all prayed until we bled from it and it's all still suffering and injustice and pain! Maybe I have taken risks. Maybe I'm not strong enough. But this world-- " He pauses and looks over at Dean, who suddenly can't breathe, because it's -- Cass. He would know Cass anywhere. "This world deserves a God who will fight for it."

"Yes," Death drawls. "You're quite the humanitarian."

"I love them," Cass says, and if _them_ means humans, he must still be talking to Death, but he's definitely only looking at Dean. "They're my people."

"Touching," Death says. "When _their_ world is overrun with Leviathans, I'm sure _they_ will be eager to return the compliment."

"All right, that's enough!" Dean breaks in. "Will you please quit trying to win an argument with him and just kill him already?"

Cass is fucking impossible to win an argument with.

Turns out he's pretty hard to kill, too.

 

_He has a dream about Cass._

_It's dark, but he thinks it's the same alley where they fought -- okay, where Dean got his ass kicked -- right before the end of the world. Cass has his shirt in both hands, pushing him hard against the wall and shaking him, growling out, "Look what you've done to me. What am I now, Dean?"_

_"_ _How the hell should I know?" Dean gasps. "I didn't--" But that's as far as he gets before Cass kisses him._

_Okay, there's probably not a lot of layers of symbolism to it. Dean never claimed to be a complicated guy._

_Dean puts his hand on the back of Cass' neck, and he can feel the tidy cut of his hairline and the shape of his vertebrae. He reaches out to put his other hand under Cass' jaw, and he bumps into Cass' hand reaching for his hair, and their noses nudge together, and Cass makes a noise that's definitely a whine and isn't sexy at all but makes Dean smile and clutch him a little tighter._

_It's all just...really, really...specific._

_"_ _Am I dreaming?" Dean asks. He sounds stoned as hell. "Cass, are you -- is this you?"_

_Cass breaks his gaze, looking down guiltily. "I'm never really sure anymore," he admits._

_Dean kisses him again, but gently, and only for a couple of seconds. "You can't be here," he says. "Cass, we're not -- anything. We weren't ever anything."_

_"_ _Don't say that," Cass murmurs, putting his palms against the wall on either side of Dean's head and leaning down to brush his lips over Dean's neck. "I love you."_

_Dean slides his arms under Cass' coat and his jacket, around his ribs, and says, "I know, angel, but-- " Cass closes his mouth over Dean's again. This time Dean doesn't stop him, because this is going to stop soon enough no matter what he does, and so fuck it. Fuck it._

_He wakes up sweat-soaked and full of regret, which hardly ever happens now that he's drinking a lot less than before._

 

In the end, it's not Dean who keeps the faith. It's not Dean who lets go of his anger and his pride long enough to pray Cass home. Sam's always been...better at that stuff. A better man. Usually Dean's kinda fine with that, but this time....

Dean just feels useless and he hates that. He never really -- knew for sure what he and Cass were headed toward, if they were going to ruin each other or -- ride off into the sunset or whatever, but he never for a second thought he would just end up being a bystander. It's a letdown.

He didn't always love being Cass's stupid mission, but.... But he was anyway, and he guesses some responsibilities you don't get to pick up and put down whenever you want. All you get to do is either hang the hell on or let them fall.

"I feel regret," Cass tells him, half-eaten up from the inside and too weak to get up off the floor. "About what I did to Sam, and about -- you."

"Yeah, well, you should," Dean says. He doesn't even know exactly what that second one means, but he feels like shit and if Cass wants to regret that, Dean's not gonna stop him.

"If there was time, if I was strong enough, I'd fix him now." Dean nods shortly. For what it's worth, he doesn't doubt that. "I just wanted to make amends before I die."

And that's why it's so damn hard to stay mad at Cass. Every stupid fucking thing he does, right up to the end, he always does because he can't leave a bad situation alone. He just has to get in there and tinker around with the universe, and most of the time he should definitely not do that, but -- he wouldn't be Cass if he could just walk away.

Instead of saying any of that, Dean just says, "Okay."

"Is it working?" Cass asks.

"Do you feel better?" Dean says.

"No. You?"

"Not a bit."

They need Cass on his feet for this stupid spell, so Dean leans down and takes hold of his arms to help him up. He sways once he's got his legs under him, and Dean braces himself to end up with an armful of Cass. Cass puts one arm around his shoulders and leans against him like some kind of fainting Victorian maiden, and Dean rolls his eyes a little, but it is what it is. "I was telling you the truth," Cass murmurs. "When I saw your soul in Hell -- I'd never seen anything like it."

"Great, thanks," Dean says tersely. He knows Cass probably needs to get this stuff off his chest before he dies, but that doesn't mean Dean has to pretend to be excited about it.

Cass grabs Dean's collar with his other hand, looks up at him with those earnest eyes, and says, "No, listen to me, listen. When I touched you, when I realized I was chosen for this, to bear you up to the light where you belonged, everything changed. I lost Heaven for you, and I'm not sorry. I thought I could build you a Heaven of your own, and I was weak and I was foolish, but I wasn't wrong that you deserved it. You did. You do. I hope you find it."

Dean doesn't know what to say to that. He's never been loved like Cass loves him, the crazy, trainwreck kind of love that gives too goddamn much and spits right in God's eye if He's got a problem with it. He thinks it's pretty likely that he won't ever be again. He's still way too angry to be grateful for it, but....

But it sure is something.

 


	12. The Born-Again Identity

_Castiel floats without direction, buoyed on the sirocco winds of Heaven. He can feel himself expanding, his light growing faint and delicate at the tips of his rays. The dust of stars drifts mote by mote through his beams and he shudders in bliss at the sensation._

_His wheels have ground to a halt. His wings bow downward, molting like dripping honey. He is static and silent. He is dissipating._

_If you had it to do over again, the enveloping infinity asks him, would you change anything?_

_Colors brew and boil from Castiel, gold and pink, as he spills outward, screaming grace and rage and longing in a glorious havoc of bells._

 

He surfaces from the river, struggling through the current for the bank as he vomits water and bile. He is cold and exhausted and alone.

The sun is low to the ground. He doesn't know if it's morning or evening. He tries to remember what time it was when he fell into the water, but he fails. He remembers....

Very little. Pain, and a sound like a dozen crashing cymbals. The color pink. Preparing himself to die.

His body aches as he crawls from the shallows onto the slick stones. He feels as if he should be covered in bruises, but wherever he wipes away mud and algae, he finds unmarked skin.

A flash of color catches his eye. He looks back at the water and sees three bright dragonflies chasing each other around the surface of the water lapping the stones. They're beautiful, and for a moment he forgets to worry about his own invisible injuries.

When they fly away, he stands up and looks around. There is a road....

Not a road, a trail. Just a trail of clean-packed dirt winding alongside the river, and he finds that disappointing for some reason. He wonders if he was waiting for a ride before his -- accident. It feels as if there should be a car coming for him....

Nothing comes for him. He chooses his direction at random and begins to walk along the trail.

The sun sinks only a little lower before he meets another living person, a red-haired woman walking a large, jowly dog. The dogs whuffs cheerfully and leans toward him; the woman stifles a less cheerful noise and strains away, tugging hard on its leash.

He is suddenly aware that it is very inappropriate for him to be naked, and he feels guilty, although it was not remotely his choice. (Unless it was. He can't remember.) "Don't be afraid," he says.

"Did -- did you fall in the river?" she asks.

"I think so," he says. "Where am I?"

"Zeus!" she says sharply, and he cocks his head to the side, attempting to digest this strange information. He is so distracted he only barely manages to dodge a _very_ inappropriate encounter with the dog who has taken advantage of the slack in its leash to investigate him with its nose. "Sorry!" the woman gasps. "Zeus, stop it, come here. Come here."

He pats its head gingerly. "It won't bite me, will it?"

"No, he's, he's very sweet -- I'm sorry, I can't, uh -- can I help you?"

"I probably need help," he admits.

"Lucky for you," she says, "I just came from yoga."

He doesn't understand how that makes him lucky, but she unwinds the skirt wrapped around her hips and removes her cardigan, giving him both. She is shivering a little in her leggings and sleeveless top, but she is also smiling.

Actually, he thinks she is laughing. He thinks she is laughing at him. He glances down at himself; the skirt fits fine, although the sweater is a little small. The dog gets the string tied around his waist in its mouth and tries to chew. "Oh, goddamit, Zeus," the woman sighs, tugging on him again.

"Your name is Zeus," he says to the dog, touching its cheek to nudge it gently away. "You should behave more regally."

The woman laughs. "And my name is Daphne," she says. "Should I run for it?"

He steps away from her, crossing his arms over his chest and wishing the sweater covered him up more. "That is a rape joke," he says, "and I feel very uncomfortable with it, given the circumstances."

"I'm -- sorry?" she says, looking a little lost. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, we were talking -- about mythology -- look, never mind. I'm sorry. What's your name?"

"I don't know," he says.

"Wait, so you know Zeus and Daphne, but you don't know your name? You're what, some kind of -- hot amnesiac Classics professor, seriously? Sorry, sorry," she says quickly when he flinches back a little more. "I didn't mean to -- violate your boundaries, Weird Naked Guy in the Woods."

"I am not _voluntarily_ weird, or naked, or in the woods," he says with as much dignity as he can. "I think that you are joking with me because you're nervous and you think it makes you sound less nervous, and I'm sorry that I make you nervous, but I think you'll agree that this is at least as frightening a situation for me. I suspect that you at least know how to get home."

"True," she says. Her nervousness abates a little; she is beginning to feel protective of him instead. "But on the other hand, my car keys are in the pocket of the sweater you're wearing, so I guess we need to work as a team to get home, huh?"

He puts his hand in the pocket of the sweater, pulls out her keys, and holds him out toward her. She reaches for them, and for the first time he notices that her arm is covered in the remains of old injuries -- puncture marks, mostly, but a few long, straight white scars. Without thinking, he takes hold of her wrist, and she freezes, but her fear is only a flicker of light illuminating the broad expanse of her guilt and shame. "It's all right," he says softly.

"Let me go," she says in a small voice, but she doesn't want him to. She aches with a lifetime of abandonment and loneliness. She relies only on herself now; other humans have betrayed her again and again, have blamed her again and again for her own pain. She is touch-starved and embarrassed about it, because she believes only children and dogs are pure enough to deserve happiness.

"It's all right," he says again. "Please, I want to help." She is shivering again, but not because she's cold. He lets the keys fall unnoticed onto the dirt between them and puts his hand on the inside of her forearm. Her hand clenches shut and then reaches open and she bites her lip, her eyes welling with tears. She is wearing a small crucifix around her neck, and he nods toward it and says, "You are a Christ-follower?"

"N-no," she says shakily. "Not really. My grandmother...."

For some reason, he thinks of the dragonflies. It's so strange that humans, alone of all the creatures of the world, can feel that they have fallen short of expectations. Dragonflies are burdened, he is relatively sure, with no doubts about their own beauty, their own right to be alive in the world. "I would like to pray for you," he says. "Is that all right?" She nods.

He isn't sure how to pray. He has no idea what he believes in. Dragonflies, he supposes. Beauty. Being alive in the world. Strangers who are kind from the depths of their suffering. He bows his head over her arm where he has it enclosed between his hands and he murmurs the only prayer that comes to mind, over and over. _God be with us. God be with us._

He didn't know there would be a light, but he somehow isn't surprised when he sees it spreading between his hands, coiling around her arm, burning them both without pain. Daphne is surprised, her mouth dropping open in silent amazement, but it seems natural to him.

When he lets her go, Daphne's arm is as unmarked and whole as his skin is. "Oh, my God," she gasps hoarsely. "How did you...? What are you?"

"I don't know," he admits. Zeus startles him by getting its nose underneath his skirt, and he yelps in undignified surprise. Daphne begins to laugh, and soon they're standing on a hiking trail alongside one of Colorado's lesser rivers, hugging each other desperately while she laughs and laughs and he weeps quietly into her hair.

 

 

"I was going to take you to the police," Daphne says once they're in the car, "but now that I know you have powers, I'm thinking that's not such a great idea. What if you escaped from some kind of government testing program? Like a Wolverine-type situation.

"What kind of situations do wolverines have?" he asks.

"Okay," she says cheerfully, "stick with the Greeks, no Marvel. Check." None of it makes the slightest bit of sense to him, but she looks at him in the rear-view mirror and smiles, and he feels surprisingly comfortable. The way she speaks is peculiar, but at the same time somehow familiar to him.

She brings him to her house, which looks small but inviting from the street. Instead of parking in front of it, she drives down a steep gravel slope to the back door, because it turns out that she only lives in the basement of this small place, which is less inviting. It's dark and chilly, concrete floors haphazardly insulated with blankets in no particular color scheme, beams of unfinished wood overhead. He hesitates on the threshold, suddenly overwhelmed by the deep sadness of failure. Zeus whines and nudges its head into his left buttock. "Yes, all right," he mumbles, and crosses over.

"Are you hungry?" Daphne is calling out to him from the kitchen.

He thinks about it. "No," he decides. "This is...where you live?"

Her head pokes up from above the open refrigerator door. "Sorry it doesn't live up to expectations," she says sharply.

"I've hurt your feelings," he says. "I had no expectations, it just.... It doesn't feel like you."

Daphne shrugs. "Only been here six months," she says, and he nods as if that's the source of the problem, although he knows it's not. "Okay, I have macaroni, I have Gardenburgers, I have tons of cereal, I have peanut butter -- but, uh, no bread at the moment. Probably crackers, though, let me look."

"I'm really not hungry," he says.

"You're eating cereal," she tells him.

"Are you trying to mother me?" he asks.

"Gross," she says. "And yes."

He chuckles, and she pops up again to glare at him. "You were making a joke, weren't you?" he says. "I thought it was funny."

"Oh," she says. "Right. Well, I am funny, thank you for noticing. For that, you get pants."

Daphne is as good as her word; she finds sweatpants for him, and a t-shirt with a logo he doesn't recognize on the front and a list of tour dates on the back. "It's a little small," he says, plucking at the sleeve.

"I have a wide variety of shirts left behind by scrawny junkie ex-boyfriends," she says. "You may choose from any of them, but they are all going to be a little small on you."

"Sorry," he says. He feels that he is being very disruptive to Daphne's life.

She laughs at him. "Damn you, Hot Amnesiac Professor, and your biceps, too. Hey, I can't keep calling you that; why don't you pick a name?"

The three of them barely fit on the couch, particularly since Zeus does not have the higher-order reasoning to visualize the one-third of a couch that is his fair share, but it's chilly in the basement anyway, and he doesn't mind Daphne snuggling into him. He puts his feet on the edge of the couch and balances her laptop on his knees, wrapping an arm around her shoulders while she eats cereal and locates a show about solving murders that she then seems to ignore entirely.

"You can stay as long as you need to," she says softly, after what he thinks are at least three successfully prosecuted murders.

"You aren't responsible for me just because you found me lost in the woods," he says.

"I know I'm not. It's just -- buddy, you _did_ something -- it's not just the scars, it's.... I've been, uh. I've been clean for two months, but that's -- happened before, and I didn't really know.... But I feel so good now. I feel _amazing_. It's like... I just have this feeling like I'm going to be okay -- be happy, even, and that's..... I don't remember the last time I felt like that. I never walk Zeus on that trail, and tonight I did, and -- you needed help, and I needed help, and -- you have this gift, whatever this is. It's been a long, long time since I had faith in anything, but... What makes more sense here, you know? Coincidence? Or does it just make more sense to believe...." She stops and clears her throat roughly. "I don't know if God sent you. But that's how I feel."

"I'm glad I could help," he says. "But I still don't feel like you owe me anything. Whatever I did, if it was even me, it was easy to do. Nothing that comes next feels like it's going to be easy."

"I'm not saying this because I owe you," she says. "You pop up in my life and I'm suddenly happy -- what am I going to do, kick you out? Gift from God or random weirdo, I just -- want you to stay, okay? For now, at least."

He has nowhere else to go, so he doesn't know why he's arguing. "Thank you," he says. "This is a very depressing apartment, though. Have you considered that maybe you're not happy because you have to live in a lair?"

"It goes back a little further than that," she chuckles, "but yes, this place sucks. I actually like it better now that I get to think of it as a _lair_ , though."

"Here, this," he says, and angles the computer screen toward her so she can read the name, its meaning and origin and the famous people who share it. It's the meaning, though, that he likes, and he knows that's also what makes her smile warmly.

"I like it," she says. "Emmanuel."

They watch more murders, and then a comedy show about the news, which serves to make Emmanuel aware that he has a very steep learning curve ahead of him if he wants to understand current events. Finally she turns the tv off and turns her head to look up at him. "Are you gay?" she asks.

"I don't know," he says. "I haven't thought about it."

Daphne rolls her eyes. "Well, do you think you _could_ think about it? I'm not kicking you out, either way, but...."

But it's important to her to know. He feels her thrum of anxiety, and he frowns. He doesn't know what answer she wants to hear. He doesn't know if she knows what answer she wants to hear. He decides not to worry about that and concentrate on answering honestly.

He doesn't _know_ , though. He has no memory of interacting with another human being except Daphne, and Daphne is aesthetically lovely and he finds himself pleased and proud every time she graces him with her smile. He can imagine kissing her, and -- more than that, even, but at the same time -- he doesn't feel especially _motivated_ to do so. He's quite comfortable where he is.

But while he suspects the subtext of her question was _Are you interested in me sexually?_ , that wasn't the literal question she asked, and he doesn't want to presume. Safer to answer only what he's been asked, as the television lawyers recommend.

His experience with men is limited to four and a half hours of handsome television lawyers, police officers, and comedians. He can't imagine kissing any of them, but mainly because they feel -- they are -- unreal and distant. None of them have ever smiled at him, or shown him kindness, or laughed at his awkward honesty. He's never smelled their hair or felt the nervous, hopeful thrum of their emotions as they curled closer to him on the couch, so he has no basis for judgment.

For a moment, Emmanuel experiences -- an impression -- maybe a fantasy, maybe a memory, but more than an image in his mind. He can feel himself sitting on the edge of a bed, or maybe a couch, leaning into -- almost falling into the gravity field of another body. It's a distinctly male body: a solid, distinctly male arm wrapped around his back with its strong, distinctly male hand rubbing the tension out of the back of Emmanuel's neck, a broad, distinctly male chest under his cheek, a rumbly, distinctly male voice telling him to _breathe_. A dull weight drops into the pit of Emmanuel's stomach, the aching loss of something he doesn't know whether or not he ever had. Something he wants, though even the thought of it makes him feel bruised from head to toe.

"Maybe," he says, when he forces himself back to his present place and time.

"I thought so," Daphne says. "It's okay, it really is. I mean, if you wanted to, I'd probably-- but honestly, I feel like...I've had twenty years of sex because someone else wanted to, and I'm not even completely sure if I ever wanted any of it at all, which is definitely what I'm going to be talking with my therapist about this week, but -- what I'm saying is -- you're stupidly hot and funny and sincere and literally magical, and I'm probably at least a little bit in love with you, but also not having sex with you sounds...awesome? I'd ask if that makes sense, but it doesn't even to me, so."

" _Awesome_ makes sense, though," he says. "Let's stick with what's awesome."

"It's a plan. Go team chastity!" she says, and he responds automatically to her high-five. It makes her laugh, and he considers the possibility that he's at least a little bit in love with her, too.

The way she's made space for him in her life, without qualifications, without reservations.... It feels good. Emmanuel doesn't know if he's ever had a home before, but he knows this is what one feels like, and it's deeply imperfect (it's a _dingy lair_ , and they're really going to have to re-evaluate this situation soon), but it belongs to him.

 

They don't stay in the basement for long.

Daphne tells him it will be no trouble to secure legal identification for him, or a convincing replica thereof. "So many shady people owe me so many favors," she tells him cheerfully. "Don't even worry about it."

"It's actually more worrisome when you say it like that," he grumbles, but he is in no position to put his foot down, so he ends up with a driver's license and birth certificate that both say he is Emmanuel Allen.

"I should've asked if you want a different last name," Daphne says, unexpectedly shy. "I just thought it would be -- simpler if we let people assume we were married."

He kisses the top of her head. "It's a nice name," he says, and just like that, without intent or effort, they seem to step into a life that shouldn't belong to them, but somehow...does.

Daphne's part-time receptionist job with a heating and air conditioning company becomes full-time. Emmanuel finds work at what Daphne tells him is a "painfully hipster" donut shop; he has few job skills and no references, but on the other hand he does speak fluent Spanish (for whatever reason) and is willing to get up at four in the morning -- three-thirty, in fact, to take Zeus for a quick jog before work. They become not-entirely-broke almost overnight and bid farewell to the lair (Daphne feels nostalgia for it; Emmanuel does not), lucking into a very good deal on a pretty rental cottage with a spacious front porch. They can't afford to furnish it, but they undertake a little more well-meaning deception, staging wedding pictures with borrowed clothes and mailing them to Daphne's grandmother, who is delighted to know that Daphne is alive and well, and eager to send gifts, especially when Daphne lets it slip that Emmanuel sometimes makes her go to church. They get a dining room set for that, and it even happens to be true.

Their new neighborhood is very friendly, particularly when they come armed with a loveable dog who seems to find his calling in social media, if the number of people who want to take his picture is any indication. When the weather is good, Emmanuel and Daphne like to play chess on the front porch, and neighbors often stop by to chat, to drink Daphne's pomegranate green tea, to tease Emmanuel about his seven o'clock bedtime, to drop nosy hints that the house is more than big enough to add a baby.

Emmanuel is startled the first time someone suggests it, just like he's startled every time he realizes all over again that they are successfully passing for normal. It feels like a scam they've cooked up together, and he likes it. He likes shooting Daphne meaningful little glances and knowing that he has a friend and a co-conspirator. He finds her rather sexy when she's put on the spot about their past; she lies so beautifully, far more adeptly than he does.

"No kids," she tells him sternly when she comes to bed that night. "I'm not joking, that is a hard limit for me."

"All right," he says. "We'd get a lot more presents, though." She chuckles and snuggles against his chest, and he can feel her relief, a mirror of his own. He doesn't know why he's so dead-set against the idea, but the very thought of it turns his stomach a bit. He wonders if he carries some residual trauma from his previous life; he knows Daphne does. This, like so many other things about them, is for the two of them alone to know and for the neighbors to never in a lifetime of guessing actually guess.

The Allens are surprisingly shady people.

He doesn't mean to start healing people, but...they have neighbors now, and when they stop by to talk, they sometimes share their worries. Emmanuel only offers to pray for them at first.

But the words stay with him. He doesn't sleep soundly anyway, never really has, but once he starts becoming aware, the noise is with him constantly, particularly in the silence as his wife sleeps in his arms.

Endometriosis.

Lupus.

Cystic fibrosis.

_You have this gift -- I don't know if God sent you --_

He buys a pathology textbook off the internet and sits up at night reading it, marveling over the delicacy and fragility of the human body. He learns etiology, signs and symptoms, diagnosis and treatment.

When he leaves the house, he begins to hear the words floating freely in the air. At the dog park, the grocery store, the bicycle shop. Worried eyes as people pass him by, lost in their own pain and fear of the future. The flutter of helpless longing, of utter weariness, of doubt. Prayers gone unanswered, as Emmanuel's fingers twitch of their own accord, heating from beneath the skin.

Cervical cancer.

Ectopic pregnancy.

Chronic fatigue syndrome.

Sickle cell disease.

He tries praying by himself, calling each of their faces to his mind, on his knees in the dark hours before he's due at work. _God be with them_ , he shapes with his lips, again and again. The burning spreads up to his wrists. It doesn't cause him pain, but it forces tears from him anyway.

_You have this gift...._

When he can't endure it any longer, he confesses everything to Daphne over dinner. She listens carefully, continuing to eat her pasta while her big doe eyes stay carefully on his face. "I know it would draw attention," he says softly. "There could be -- consequences. We're guilty of a dozen kinds of fraud, at the very least."

"The very least," she repeats in wry agreement. "You know someone is almost definitely looking for you, right? You didn't literally come from nowhere."

"I know. And I don't want to expose you -- expose either of us to any danger. But, Dragonfly...."

"I know, I know," she sighs. She tucks her hair behind her ear; she is wearing it longer now, the red toned down to a gentler, more respectable auburn. "You didn't come from nowhere... and also, you didn't come here to make macchiatos and walk my fat-ass rescue dog for the rest of your life. You're -- you're special, baby. In a million different ways. And if this is what you have to do, we'll...make it work. I'll help."

Daphne's previous experience in underworld activity turns out to be, once again, very useful. She knows how to leave a word in the right place, how to let someone know to contact someone else who will contact a friend who will contact Daphne. It feels labyrinthine and frustrating, when he can't so much as pick up the dry cleaning without shouldering his way through a half-dozen cries for help he has to ignore. But Daphne argues, and Emmanuel knows she's right, that if they spread the word too widely, he'll never have a moment's peace again.

Part of him doesn't think he was brought here for the sake of his own peace, but he can't ask Daphne to endure so much for his sake. She has been his champion and his protector, his friend and his co-conspirator; she is everything he knows about love. He won't make a martyr of her to -- whatever mission he hopes or fears he's been given by God.

The first time he lays his hands on someone who has come to him for help ( _Parkinson's_ , he hears breathed inside his ear before the man can say a word), the light feels like it almost lifts him off his feet as it flows from his hands. It steals his breath and disorients him, but...not unpleasantly.

It feels like flying.

 

They manage it for well over three months. It seems like no time at all, and yet probably more than Emmanuel had any right to hope for.

Everyone knew someone would come for him sooner or later, but he didn't expect his first warning of something wrong to come in the form of watching one stranger stab another to death on his front porch. That seems like it should be -- at least Act Two, not the inciting event.

He is surprised by the light, and the distorted, bestial image he sees extending the dead man's features in the moments before he dies. Of course he's surprised -- or at least he tells himself he is -- but it's embarrassing how quickly that surprise is forgotten when he looks from the corpse up to the killer, replaced by a new, uncomfortably visceral shock. "What was that?" he asks. He has to say something; he can't say, _My God, you're beautiful_ , and _oh, I think I might be gay_ also feels wildly inappropriate.

The man doesn't answer him at first -- just stares at Emmanuel like he's trying to burn holes in Emmanuel's skin with invisible lenses. Emmanuel takes a few steps forward, not nearly close enough to read the man's emotional state -- except that he can, from a far greater distance than Emmanuel is accustomed to. It's like being screamed at, a palpable wave of-- what?

Anger. Grief. Hope. Sex and violence and some kind of -- of despair, far deeper and older than Emmanuel has encountered before, as if the worst possible things have happened to this man for so long that he's only alive because muscle memory and bloody-minded stubbornness keep his fingers wrapped stiffly around life. It's agonizing to wade through; Emmanuel can't imagine what it's like to live inside it.

He takes another step forward, reminding himself firmly that he is a healer. He's here to run toward pain not away from it, even though he's unfamiliar with the kind of pain that is this coiled and fused around the core of a person.

"Get inside," the man finally says gruffly.

Seeing Daphne bound and gagged shocks him back to reality. "That creature hurt you," he says stupidly as he unbinds her, his hands shaking. It's his fault. They knew someone would come for him, they both knew -- he insisted -- he thought this would be worth the eventual cost, but now the cost is real in a way it never was before, and it's too late to undo his mistake.

"I'm okay," she assures him. "But Emmanuel, they were looking for you."

"It's okay," he says. Obviously it's not at all okay, but it feels true anyway. It's going to be okay.

This isn't going to happen again. Not to Daphne. He doesn't know why he's so sure, but he is.

"I'm Emmanuel," he says to the man with the knife, and he summons his courage to hold out his hand. He will not be afraid; it's only pain, familiar to him in substance if not in its severity. This is the man who saved Daphne, and so whether or not he is the "good guy" in any traditional sense, he's the ally that Emmanuel needs right now.

"Dean. I'm...Dean," he says, taking Emmanuel's hand.

It's not as bad as Emmanuel feared. Dean's mind is settling to a simmer, a fizzing baseline of emotion that's unsettled and unsettling, but not unbearable. His hand is warm and strong and callused, and it occurs to Emmanuel that, _oh, I think I might have terrible taste in men._

 

When the demons invaded his house, they shot his dog. When Emmanuel sees poor Zeus's body on the kitchen floor, something unfamiliar floods through him, a grim and wintry sort of anger, a disturbingly satisfying certainty that _someone will regret this._

It's very unlike Emmanuel, and it leaves him as shaken as the rest of it. Maybe more so.

Dean is watching his face, though, and quirks his mouth in a joyless smile, as if he's only seeing what he expected all along. It's vaguely offensive. Dean doesn't even know him--

Does he?

Emmanuel realizes all at once that he could. He could be lying about how and why he came here, could have been following the same trail the demon did, the two of them racing each other to find Emmanuel, to bring him back--

Wherever he came from.

For all Emmanuel knows, this is a trap, including the story about the sick brother. Nothing he can perceive about this man, Dean Winchester, suggests that he's a person to be trusted, and once Emmanuel gets in his car, he's effectively at Dean's mercy.

Daphne must realize the same thing, but she doesn't try to talk him out of going. She walks to the curb with Emmanuel and Dean, then leans up to press a kiss against his temple and says, "Just be careful. I love you."

He puts his arm around her waist and squeezes her gently. "You, too, Dragonfly," he whispers to the top of her head. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I know," she says. "I'll take care of the dead body."

"Please don't tell me how," he says, and she chuckles against his jaw, then gives him a little push toward the car.

Once he closes the door and buckles himself in, the silence in the car is deafening. It's somehow even louder, radiating off of Dean, than the sound of the engine turning over and the radio roaring to life. _Oh, Mama, I'm in fear for my life_ , the song begins, and Emmanuel reaches out without thinking to punch it off.

Dean raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn't argue.

Emmanuel tries not to stare at his profile, which is -- striking.

Indiana sounds like the most distant of foreign lands imaginable. Emmanuel wonders if he's ever been so far away from home before.

He's a healer, he reminds himself. He's going where the pain is, if he manages not to have a rabbitty little cardiac episode in the meantime. He'll be fine, though, of course he will.

This is what he's here for.

 

Dean isn't quite as monstrous as Emmanuel's worst fears would have it. He fills the car with barely leashed discontent, yes, but he's obviously making an effort to disguise it. If Emmanuel didn't have the gifts he has, Dean's attempts at the casual curiosity of new acquaintances might've been soothing, as they're clearly meant to be.

He doesn't doubt that Dean can charm and soothe most people with very little effort. Under different circumstances, even Emmanuel himself might choose to ignore all warning signs and allow himself to be...charmed. Something about the way Dean's hand settles on the gear shift--

_Right, yes, "something,"_ he tells himself. _How very mysterious._

It's not mysterious, but it is unexpected. Emmanuel has -- more than no interest in sex, but -- not like this. Nothing like this wild urge to order Dean to pull over on the side of the road here and now and beg him to let Emmanuel -- God, do _anything_ , anything that even tangentially involves being allowed to touch Dean's thighs and suck his fingers and hear his deep voice betray him with a groan....

Emmanuel has never for a moment felt anything like this. It can't all be the day's adrenaline, can it?

Well, it just has to be, that's all. Because it's perfectly obvious that the attraction is mutual, but everything about Dean makes it extremely clear that he doesn't make a habit of getting distracted from his goals. Right now he's set entirely on -- rescuing his brother, it seems like, and possibly of killing -- someone or something, Emmanuel is foggy on the details there, but it definitely tastes like murder in the back of Emmanuel's throat. Dean doesn't seem like the kind of person who's going to put the heroics (anti-heroics? He seems like more of an anti-hero) on hiatus because someone he doesn't even know is on a voyage of sexual self-discovery that prominently features highway blowjobs.

And even if he were, Emmanuel wouldn't--

It's so unlike him.

(Unless it's not. He can't remember.)

 

He draws the line at Meg, though.

"I think we're going to be good friends, too," she says, and smiles at him like she wants to write a textbook about everything she finds when she disassembles him.

And Dean, who's supposed to be the good guy here, just says, "All right, can we go?"

" _No_ ," Emmanuel says, baffled and obscurely disappointed. Nothing about Dean makes him easy to trust, but he though they'd made progress, dammit. "No, I -- this isn't what I agreed to."

"It's my car," Dean says. "We're not voting on this."

"We could," Meg says lightly. "Math is hard, but I think we have a majority."

"I'm not _voting_ , I'm _refusing_ ," Emmanuel says. He crosses his arms, which is as close as he feels he can get to curling up in a ball and hiding from Dean's furious gaze.

Dean grabs him by the sleeve and pulls him around to the side of the convenience store, where they're out from under that thing's laughing eyes. "What is your fucking problem?" he spits.

Emmanuel gapes at him, unable to comprehend the version of events wherein _he_ is being the unreasonable one. "I don't understand why you think I'd voluntarily -- What is the _matter_ with you, why do you think this is _normal_? She's a sadist, you are dripping with the urge to stab something, and both of you are -- just -- directing extremely uncomfortable urges in my direction. I'm pretty sure me getting in that car with the two of you is the premise for the kind of torture porn where there is no Final Girl."

"Are you -- _That's_ your problem, you think this is a horror movie?"

"Dean, this is conclusively, without a _doubt_ , a horror movie; I have amnesia, but I remember _yesterday_."

"Nobody's going to hurt you, just get in the damn car." He scruffs his fingertips roughly through his hair and then says, "Cass, I'm gonna--"

Nothing interrupts him, but he falls abruptly silent, and after another second, Emmanuel catches up and realizes why. "Am I -- am I Cass?" he says. The world has gone angular and off-center around him. His head feels like it might float away.

"Get in the car," Dean says grimly. "Don't say one more word. Not one. Just do it."

Dean is trying to intimidate him, and it's working, of course. He's a very intimidating person, particularly once you know he bears a very specific grudge against you. Still, Emmanuel knows if he just rolls over now, he'll lose any ability he has to make decisions for himself, and that's -- intolerable. No one deserves to be treated that way, no matter what Emmanuel may or may not have done wrong in another life. "If you know who I am, you have to tell me."

"I have to tell you jack shit," Dean snaps.

"I deserve to know the--"

If anything, that makes things worse. Dean leans closer to him, almost imperceptibly in terms of distance, but every level of Emmanuel finds it invasive and terrifying. "Don't. You. Fucking talk to me about what you deserve. You have _no_ idea what I've done for you, and what you did to me. Trust me, you don't _want_ what you deserve. Now get in the fucking car before I remember that the last time I saw you, you were the exact kind of monster I've spent my life wiping off the face of the Earth. Do you understand me, _Emmanuel_?"

_I understand that you hate me like I'm someone you used to love_ , Emmanuel thinks, and he wonders if he -- heard that line in a movie somewhere or -- if he remembers.... It doesn't feel like his own thought, entirely.

It doesn't feel untrue, but it doesn't feel like his thought.

Far too late, he realizes that he does remember Dean, that he possesses at least a moment of knowledge -- sitting on a bed or a couch -- leaning against Dean's chest -- Dean's hand on his neck, Dean's heat and strength, and Dean telling him, _breathe, breathe._

_Dean_ is the invisible bruise, the ache that's been buried inside the tissue and bone of Emmanuel's life since the day this life began. Dean is the thing he had and lost and can't ever have again, Dean is the pain he's been running toward as long as he can remember and the pathology he can never heal. Everything settles into place, and Emmanuel doesn't remember, but he knows. He and Dean were in love, and he did something unforgivably evil that cost him all of it, cost him everything, down to his very name.

While Dean isn't his, nothing is his. Not even his name.

He wonders, as he gets into the car, if remembering all the details would make it at least a little easier to bear. Though if Dean is anything to go by, it doesn't seem like that's the case.

 

 


	13. Reading Is Fundamental

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this is worth a content note: Chapter contains trace amounts of sexualized aggression that kinda knocks on the door of non-con. I don't think it's all that big a deal myself, but I realize other plants are more sensitive than I, so I thought a quick mention wouldn't do any harm.

Dean catnaps a couple of times, waking up to grumble something he hopes is encouraging to Kevin. It's not like he doesn't feel for the kid; Dean's never not gonna feel bad for a fellow member of God's own garrison of misfits, victims, and righteous monstrosities.

Shit, maybe this place is a sex-torture dungeon after all. Not Rufus's cabin, but, you know. Planet Earth.

Dean stands up and stretches backwards until his spine makes a satisfying crack. He's hungry enough to put on his big-girl panties and brave the upstairs, tired enough to feel a little weirdly giddy about it. Sure, why not find out what his brother, some demon, and his bugfuck-crazy, mass-murdering, ex-non-boyfriend have gotten up to for entertainment? He's bored and he feels like breaking something.

He's feeling like God today, in other words.

"Hey, what happened to dinner?" he says. Sam and Cass are sitting at the table, leaning toward each other and talking softly but intently. That can't be a good thing. They startle apart a little guiltily at Dean's voice, and Dean scowls at both of them, because he's not stupid, he knows that means they were talking about him. "Did you eat everything already?"

"No, of course not," Sam says. "There's food on the stove. We're, uh, calling it taco soup."

"You can call it a Screaming Orgasm," Dean says. "What is it actually, though?"

"Chicken broth, diced tomatoes, kidney beans, and half a jar of nacho cheese," Sam says, a little defensively. Sure, this he refuses to feel guilty for. Dean stirs the pot, gives it the hairy eyeball and then Sam. "Look, it's shelf-stable and high protein, what do you want from me?" Sam says.

"Aren't we supposed to be hunters? Why are we reduced to eating vegetarian in a forest full of -- I dunno, forest creatures?"

"You want possum stew, you go blundering around in the dark with a gun. And anyway, it's got chicken."

"No, it's got chicken broth," Dean grumbles. "That's pretty much a vegetable." He takes a sip from the ladle, and it's not too bad. Desperately needs seasoning of some kind, but he doubts Rufus has much of a spice cabinet in this place, and the salt and cheese make it edible.

He takes another couple tastes, and Cass says, "I could get you a bowl and spoon."

He's probably trying to be nice or something, but Dean hasn't really come around to Kumbaya just yet, so he says, "You _could_ do a lot of things. You _could_ keep your mouth shut when no one's talking to you, but you never do."

"Dean..." Sam says wearily.

"It's all right," Cass says. "Yellow-jacket wasps emit a pheromone when mortally wounded that brings the other members of its colony within seconds to defend and rescue it. I think that's inspiring, don't you? It might seem like aggressive behavior, but it's really just...loyalty. Maybe even love. Who is to say that wasps are incapable of love? They risk their lives for one another, and we can only imagine how they subjectively experience--"

"Cass, I swear to _fuck_ that if you don't stop--"

"Okay, that's enough!" Sam orders. "Guys, I -- I know that this is uncomfortable for everybody, but this is where we all are right now, and I just think -- it doesn't make anything better to...you know, act out."

"I wasn't attempting to display aggressive behavior," Cass says, staring at the table, and Sam, goddamn that kid, reaches over and pats his arm. Dean rolls his eyes. He doesn't know what Cass' game is, sucking up to Sam, but he does know that Sam is 99% likely to fall for it. "That's just an interesting fact about wasps and heroism."

"Yeah, they sound great," Dean says. "I'm really sorry I interrupted the all-wasp remake of _Saving Private Ryan_ , I bet it would've been a life-changer." See, he can be nice.

He gets his own damn bowl and spoon, thanks, and a Coke from the fridge because, right, Rufus is the only person Dean's ever interacted with on purpose in his life who doesn't drink beer. That's fine, Dean can have soda with dinner. Might as well save the Scotch, or else he'll have nothing to look forward to. He keeps his head down while he eats; he doesn't need to see the anxious looks Sam and Cass are definitely exchanging, because of course they've gotten together and decided Dean is the problem child here, what with his _aggressive_ _behavior_ and all.

Sam at least has the sense to stay out of his face, but of course Cass doesn't. "I wish you weren't angry with me anymore," he says wistfully.

"Aw, geez," Dean says, "and you used to be the president of my fan club. Hate to disappoint you, bumblebee, but I'm angry, and you get to live with it a while longer."

"I'm still your fan, Dean," he says. "See? I'm still wearing the coat you gave me. Sometimes people try to take it away -- they claim to work in laundry, but I feel that you can never be too--"

Dean slams his spoon down. It doesn't make a very satisfying noise, but you work with what you've got. "All right. We're stuck here together, so if you want to have to have a _relationship conversation_ \--"

"Oh, um, I don't think--" Sam tries to interrupt.

"Shut up, Sammy, you're the one who said I was acting out, so hey, okay, you want me to be a grown-up, use my words and shit? We can have words. Stand up," Dean says to Cass, doing the same thing himself.

Cass shoots a nervous look at Sam, who just shrugs at him. He gets to his feet, and Dean grabs his sleeve and pushes him through the door into the main room.

Meg is sprawled across the couch in a nest of pillows and books, so that's not going to work for privacy, either. She pulls herself into a sitting position against the arm, clearing some space, and says, "Hey, boys. Just thought I'd bang out a couple tomes of arcane lore while we had all this downtime, but if you're looking for somewhere to bang, too, there's plenty of room to share."

"Shut up, Meg," Dean snaps, which is far from his best comeback ever, but he's honestly in no goddamn mood. There's a door to the outside world, a door to the basement, and a door to the bathroom, so Dean shoves Cass through that last one and slams it closed.

There's barely enough room for two grown men in the bathroom, but Dean figures they don't need that much room, being as they're so close and all. He pushes Cass up against the faded wallpaper between the door and the sink, holding onto his coat with both fists. "First off," Dean says, "I need you to knock it the fuck off with this I'm-so-charmingly-daffy thing. I'm not my bleeding-heart brother, and I'm not buying it. If you're gonna apologize to me, I want to know that you know what you did."

Cass blinks at him a minute, then glances away, confirming what Dean was 70% sure of anyway. "I know," he says gruffly. "I know better than you do. I was there for every death; I remember every one."

Okay, they can work with this. "Yeah, you know what you weren't there for? Sam screaming on the ground while his brain fried itself like an egg trying to cope with what Lucifer did to him. You weren't there to deal with that, or to help me when they told me he'd probably _die_ screaming. You did that to him, and then you left me alone." He would've felt better about that speech if his voice hadn't cracked at the end of it, but it is what it is.

"I'm not ignorant of what he went through," Cass says, and when Dean opens his mouth to tell him off, Cass talks over him, no louder than before but ramping up the intensity. "I harrowed Hell for forty years. I plunged into the Cage while two Archangels tore at me like wild dogs. _I have burned for you and for your brother_ , so don't tell me I don't know what Hellfire feels like."

"Oh, so you are awake in there, huh? Good, this 'I don't like conflict' shit was pissing me off."

Cass closes his eyes in a long, slow-motion blink. "I'm not here to fight with you," he says, back to that too-soft, too-gentle voice.

"Then why are you here, Cass? I told you what we need; we need fighters to take on the Leviathan -- to clean up _your_ mess. If you won't give us that, why are you even here?"

"I don't know...." Cass says, the fucking _coward._ "Moral support?"

"Jesus. Fuck your moral support." Not a lot more to say about it than that, Dean guesses.

So instead of more talking, he decides to set some shit on fire.

Dean moves his hands from Cass' coat, bracing them on the wall on either side of Cass' head instead, then shoves in and grinds up against him. Cass whines and arches his back, grinding right back into Dean, and reaches out a fumbling hand to settle on Dean's waist. He hooks a single finger through Dean's belt loop like a nervous passenger hanging onto the oh-shit bar, but he's not moving like he wants Dean to tap the brakes, and as for what's going on below the waist, those scrubs definitely don't hide too much.

He's got a hot, dangerous look in his eyes like he might try to kiss Dean, so Dean grabs his jaw and forces his head up and back, exposing his throat. He leans into the heat and the scent of Cass' neck (a little bit of hospital, a little bit of forest, and something purely Cass, a sweet, smoky burn that isn't exactly whiskey but always makes Dean feel one drink from done-for), and he fits his thigh tight between Cass' legs. "So what are you," he asks, "a martyr or a masochist?" Cass makes a vague _nnnh?_ sound, which in fairness is about all he can do with Dean's hand like this. "You come back here after everything, still begging me for it, and what I'm wondering is, do you want this because it's some kind of penance or just because you get off on it?" He's actually curious, so he lets Cass go so he can answer.

Cass swallows hard and says, "I -- I don't want this." Dean snorts. "Not like this..."

Dean yanks on the drawstring of his scrubs to loosen them. "Okay," he says. "Then stop me. You're ten times stronger than I am; if you don't want this, make me stop." What a shock, Cass doesn't. Dean gets his hand inside his scrubs and rubs hard up Cass' hot, full cock through the soft fabric of his boxers, and for once Cass is totally silent, his breath gone, his body trembling. Dean does it again, and that wrenches an agonized little noise out of Cass. It's a good noise.

The smoke alarm is going off in the back of Dean's brain, but that only counts for something if safety is your goal. Dean's gone way, way past that, because this year sucks, and last year sucked, and the year before that was unbearable, and there's not only no light, he's not even _in_ a tunnel, this is just the broken, violent, failed universe they all live in. He wants to burn shit and break shit and _act out_. He wants to tear this, all of this -- Cass and the way he made Dean feel once, Cass and the way he wouldn't stay with Dean and then wouldn't stay away -- wants to tear it all out of his life by the roots.

"You gonna let me do this, Cass?" he growls in Cass' ear, getting his hand around Cass' dick, still between the scrubs and the boxers. "You just gonna let me do anything I want? You came here wanting to show me how sorry you are, so what do you think, you think I should make you beg for my forgiveness?" Cass' breath hitches, and for one scary second Dean thinks he's going to start crying or something, but then he just shudders and pushes into Dean's hand. "Think I should make you _get down on your fucking knees_ like you did to me?"

Yeah, maybe Dean's madder about that than he told himself he was.

"If -- if that's what you need," Cass says. He's trying to sound so passive about it, so -- obedient, but the restless tension of his body as he keeps rocking toward Dean gives him away. This isn't what Cass wants but he can't stop wanting, and it makes Dean feel like a fucking _god_ \-- the sexy, blood-sacrifice kind, not the worthless deadbeat that Cass can't get past.

He's still thinking about blood sacrifice in the back of his mind when he wrenches Cass' coat collar aside and bites down on Cass' neck. He expects it to make Cass squirm, so he isn't ready when Cass goes instantly pliant in his arms, sagging forward so that Dean practically has to catch him. "Dean," Cass says, almost all a long out-breath, almost no voice behind it at all. Without really intending to, Dean puts an arm around Cass' shoulders, his hand on the back of Cass' neck, so fuck, now they're fucking holding each other, and Dean hadn't been planning for that.

Dean shifts his hand to Cass' waist and then around to his lower back, which is warm and has more defined musculature than Dean expected; he tends to think of Cass' strength as mainly magical or Heavenly or whatever, and forgets that he's not just infinite layers of ill-fitting coats under that trench, like a Salvation Army nesting doll. "Aw, hell," he mutters into Cass' hair. "Why didn't you stop me?"

"I don't know," Cass says quietly. "I guess I thought it was this or nothing. And I know you think I'm faking it, but my mind is definitely working -- differently since the coma. I don't think it's necessary to overly medicalize my situation, and actually some of the insect thoughts are really surprisingly valuable, but overall we can't rule out the possibility that I'm currently making some decisions that a quote-unquote sane person would not make."

There's a red mark on his neck. Dean touches his lips to it and waits for the shiver to run all the way through Cass' body before he starts to suck lightly.

He's in no position to judge Cass. He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing right now, either, and he doesn't even have a Hell-coma to blame it on.

There's a loud bang on the door, and Dean jumps back so fast he smacks his hip into the sink, leaving Cass leaning on nothing and staggering to catch his balance. "Guys?" Sam shouts through the door. "Does anyone know where Meg is?"

 

Less than two hours later, a strange angel yells at Dean, _The moment Castiel laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost_ , and Dean's really got no comeback at all for that.

 

By morning, Meg is gone and Kevin is gone and Cass is gone. Sam is dozing on the couch with a transcript of God's Word, and Dean sits down at the kitchen table to eat a glass of Scotch for breakfast, which is maybe the least self-destructive thing he's done in the past twenty-four hours.

He's pouring his second when Sam comes shuffling in, notebook still tucked under his arm like someone might teleport in and grab it away from him; stranger things have happened, Dean guesses. Sam gives him a judgy look and says, "You know, there's coffee."

"That doesn't mix with Scotch at all," Dean says. "You need Bailey's for that."

It turns out to be instant coffee, which is probably why Sam doesn't press the issue. He makes himself a cup, but he can't even act excited about it, gulping it out of an unmarked mug like it's medicinal and he's trying not to taste it. Dean makes a show of taking a slow sip of his drink and savoring it.

"How did it go with Cass?" Sam finally asks. "Your -- talk."

That calls for knocking the whole rest of the glass back, which Dean does. "I dunno," he mumbles, staring at the empty tumbler in his hands, turning it around and around to wash the last amber drop around in circles. "I don't know if this is something you can really -- talk out. I get that you think we should just wipe the slate clean because of the Leviathans, but he knocked down your wall before he ate Purgatory. That was just Cass. What am I supposed to say, you know? No hard feelings?"

"I wish you wouldn't do that. Hide behind me." Dean looks up sharply. "Why should this be about me when I'm fine?" Sam says. "Just -- God, Dean. Just be mad because he broke your trust and he broke your heart. You don't need another reason."

Two seconds ago, the cabin felt vast and empty, the two of them just rattling around in the silence. Now the silence rings with Sam's words, crowding Dean and throwing elbows, sucking the air out of the whole place, because these aren't -- these aren't words they use, they're not things Sam says and they're sure as hell not things that Dean -- knows how to share space with. Barely even in his own head; definitely not out in the open air.

"I...don't know what you're talking about," he says stiffly.

He says stuff like that all the time; to be fair, so does Sam. It's an unspoken family rule that the only right answer to _I don't know what you're talking about_ is a smirk or a bitchy eye-roll, but it's definitely out-of-bounds to follow it up with -- what you're actually talking about.

But this time Sam, who only ever follows family rules more-often-than-not, seems like he's in the mood to break some shit himself, so he says, "Don't do that. You have to stop -- stop treating me like I'm just some asshole at a roadhouse that you can bullshit." Dean would love to bullshit him, but he's got nothing, he is absolutely bone-dry out of words. He seems to have pissed Sam off without even trying; he's even got the kid using dirty words, which is the big guns, with Sam.

Seems like Sam isn't anywhere near out of words, though. "I've been watching you all my life, Dean. I've watched you get -- get obsessed with these imaginary men, I've watched you fixate on learning everything about them and build this -- this version of yourself that you think you'll like as much as you like Patrick Swayze or Mel Gibson or Han Solo or Butch Cassidy or whoever it is this time around, this bullshit outlaw-cowboy idea of what a man is supposed to be, and I'm telling you, these stupid crushes of yours -- _No. Shut. Up._ \-- these crushes are just stupid fantasies, they're a million movies on a million motel tv's, and _you_ are real, and you're a better man than them. They're too small for you. You are good and brave and you take care of people and you love so hard that it drives me crazy sometimes, and you finally met someone who watches you the way you watch those guys, and he's _real_ **.** He's not perfect, yeah, I get it. News flash, no one in your life is, no one in the world is. But just -- stop. Stop asking me to play along with this, it's been thirty years and I'm tired of it. It's too depressing. I want more for you."

Dean's head is spinning. Two glasses of whiskey feels like twelve, and he doesn't -- he can't process all this, he hasn't had enough sleep, he's not ready for _all my life_. He's barely ready for Cass.

He's probably not ready for Cass.

Too much of his brain is taken up with _good morning, it's time to panic and freak out_ so the part that just spews bullshit when left unattended comes out with, " _Lethal Weapon_ is a good movie, Sammy, it doesn't make me gay."

Sam just looks at him for a second, then shakes his head with a look in his eyes that Dean has been sickly familiar with all his life, the worst look in the world. The one that comes after his little brother says _please do something_ , and Dean has to straight-up lie or pretend he didn't hear because there's nothing he can actually do.

Sam gets up from the table and turns away, running his mug under the faucet without any soap, leaving Dean staring at his back. He still feels like he's been punched in the stomach and dunked under water, but even more he feels -- that thing, that thing when he's letting Sam down, that thing Dean hates more than any of the glorious variety of inventive tortures his life has put him through.

And this time he doesn't have to -- right? He could try just...not letting Sam down. See if it works for him.

Dean clears his throat and says, "Sundance."

It comes out thinner and more ragged than he expects, but it's a quiet room, and there's no way Sam's gonna miss it. "What?" he says, turning around, but only halfway, like he's concerned that eye contact might spook Dean into silence.

Not an unfounded concern, Dean guesses, but on the other hand, nah. He's started this, so he's in it. "You said Butch Cassidy," he says, "but it was -- uh. It was always Sundance."

"Oh," Sam says. "Yeah, I -- I guess I get them confused. Which one had the blue eyes?"

He thinks Sam might be fucking with him now, but he guesses Sam's earned the right. "No, yeah, that's Butch," he says. "Not like he's gonna break any mirrors or anything, but.... Yeah. Redford."

"Well," Sam says, with a hesitant little smile. "Guess I don't know as much as I think I do."

"Guess not," Dean says, and he tries to smile back. He's not totally sure if he pulls it off. And then because no offense but there's no way he's going through all this for Robert frigging Redford, he takes a breath and forges ahead with, "The talk went okay. I wasn't sure if I even wanted to fix things, and now I think I do. I'm not over it, but I think I want to be, so that's -- something."

"I think it's the right call," Sam says. "I know he comes with baggage, but let's be honest, so do you."

"Thanks," Dean says dryly. "Look, I'm-- This is pretty much all I can handle right now. I'm running on empty, I can't really -- even think about some big life change or whatever. I just want to -- see if we can get the friendship back, and if that happens, then -- maybe the next thing. Whatever the next thing is."

Sam nods quickly. "I think you just have to take it step by step, yeah."

"Don't get all invested in this," Dean says as sternly as he can. He's not completely sure which of them he's talking to. "I don't know if this is something that can be fixed, and I definitely don't know if I can..."

Can what? Be in a functional adult relationship? Be in an on-purpose relationship with a dude? Be part of Cass' life without making Cass' life exponentially worse in every way? Sure, pick one, Dean guesses.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam says without sounding even the slightest bit sorry, "you'll never convince me that there's anything you can't do for someone you love."

"Well, I didn't say -- that," he grumbles, and he guesses Sam is a little tapped out from wrangling him, too, because he just shrugs and lets it go.

 


	14. Survival of the Fittest

The truth is, he is mainly putting on a brave face for Dean's sake when he says, _Isn't that amazing?_

It isn't that Castiel is opposed to a period of...adventuring, or soul-searching, or sabbatical, whatever the proper term should be. He just doesn't think it's going to last very long, at least if the pattern holds. Twice, Castiel has rebelled against the hive-mind of Heaven. Twice he's been deemed among the Fallen, and twice struck down facing adversaries only a fool would engage in the first place. Twice he has been resurrected by mysterious means. Twice he's been given a grand and sweeping vision of the cosmic order.

The first time, he saw Heaven bleeding, interpreted it as a salvific mission, and shattered the walls protecting humankind from the Leviathan.

The second time, he saw that ninety percent of Earth's living species are insects. He doesn't know how to interpret that. Is he meant to transfer his erstwhile protective efforts from humans to the insect kingdom?

Castiel rather hopes that's not the case. He has a deep appreciation for the beauty of crickets and walking sticks and ladybugs, but...he prefers humans.

Well, he prefers some humans.

Anyhow, if the pattern holds, Castiel will die soon.

Isn't that amazing?

 

Castiel travels first to Egypt. He hopes to understand the sacredness of the scarab beetle. He arrives in Zagazig and takes up temporary residence in a half-constructed hotel, where he avails himself of a shower. His skin is still oversensitive from -- everything, and since he has no towel, he spreads his coat on the floor under the room's window and closes his eyes, waiting to dry as he listens to the wind flutter the plastic sheeting taped around the pane-less window.

At 1:02 in the morning, Zagazig time, the text alert noise on his phone sounds, startling him out of an unfocused reverie about scarabs rolling the sun high up the firmament and the shivery feeling of wind leaking through the tape onto his bare skin. He shifts his knee and finds the phone in the pocket of his coat.

**Sorry I made it weird** , the message says.

It's not 1:02 in the morning in Montana. Castiel isn't sure what time it is, and he could learn, but he doesn't want to. He likes imagining that it is. He likes imagining that Dean is sitting on the cabin's front steps, stars appearing and disappearing above him as the wind pushes the branches of the towering trees back and forth above his head.

He likes imagining they could speak to each other from half a planet away and yet still be both immersed in the velvety depths of the same night. It's...romantic, in multiple senses of the word.

Castiel doesn't know how to reply. He types out, **I don't mind** , and then deletes it. He types, **I forgive you** , then deletes it. He types, **I'm sorry, too** , then deletes it.

At 1:15, the phone blips in his hands, startling him out of his deliberations, and another bubble of words materializes on his screen. **Friends, ok?** it says. Castiel can almost hear it in Dean's gruff voice, flattening the question mark and nudging Castiel to understand that _yes_ is the only legitimate answer. Dean's questions are generally not designed to elicit anything other than agreement.

Dean is opinionated and pushy, stubborn and inflexible and impatient with the very concept of debate that lasts longer than ninety seconds. Dean is accustomed to getting to the right answer faster than anyone else around him and tends to assume that disagreement means other people are just not keeping up. It makes him seems arrogant. Perhaps it _makes_ him arrogant.

He still usually has the right answer, though.

Castiel means to type, **Of course** , but he's only just begun at 1:17 when the third message appears on his screen with its cheery glub-glub noise. **Sam says hi. He misses you.**

Castiel smiles at his phone, fairly sure he has cracked Dean's sophisticated code.

He might be a bit too pleased with himself, though, because he ends up sending the **Of course** , although now it looks as if it's in response to the third message and not the second, which changes its meaning entirely. It's awkward, and Castiel can't decide if a message explaining that he was responding to the second text and not the third makes it more or less awkward. He finally settles on sending a string of emojis, including a happily blushing face, three bees, a slice of pizza, and the comedy and tragedy masks, and hopes it's the technological equivalent of pleading insanity.

Castiel is new to texting, and to flirting.

He's probably going to die before he masters either skill.

 

A few hours later, strolling through the pre-dawn streets of Zagazig, he texts to Dean, **The largest terrestrial lifeform native to Antarctica is a half-cm wingless midge. Things obtain their meaning through scale. What does it mean to be large or small? Relative to what & in whose eyes?**

Dean sends him an animated eye-roll, and Castiel has never been more in love with him.

 

Castiel knows he's running out of time. He has to prioritize.

He wants to know what eusocial behavior is like, so he visits Mexico to cover himself in bees and meditate on their solidarity. They have never bothered to invent bee blades for themselves. They have never looked out on a field of their own dead kindred, a hundred wings burned into the earth, and called it justice.

He means to take a picture and send it to Dean, but he is very deeply lost in his thoughts, and he accidentally sends himself instead. Dean seems startled, but not worried about him; Castiel appreciates his faith.

He wants to know what self-sufficiency is like, so he visits Istanbul and covers himself in street cats. He likes cats very much, even though he does feel guilty about turning a blind eye to the inherent sexual violence involved in cat mating.

On the other hand, _he_ didn't invent cats. Maybe he takes too much responsibility on his own shoulders for the sins of his family.

And possibly he has no room to criticize. His own mating behavior has been less than entirely peaceable and egalitarian.

Cats seem to like Castiel very much, too, and that is flattering. He doesn't think he is learning anything about self-sufficiency as they plant their paws on his sternum and butt their heads against his jaw, arching their spines up to meet his palm. Maybe he is learning what he needs to learn: that no one is as self-sufficient as their reputations might have you believe.

 

Dean texts him, **There's nothing to eat in the whole fking country. Sam bought carrots. Too late to change my mind about saving the world?**

Castiel sends pictures of cats to comfort him.

**Good idea** , Dean texts back. **They look delicious.**

Castiel types, **I love you** , then deletes it.

 

Flowers are the polar opposite of cat penises. They are the gentlest form of sexual reproduction that Castiel can imagine.

His love for Dean spans the full erotic gamut, from flowers to cats, and that is a very sobering thought. Is that virtuous? He used to be so sure that he knew what virtue meant.

He visits the flower market in Amsterdam, where they float their colorful stalls on boats in the canal. It all looks and smells spectacular, but he is mystified by everything he sees. There is more to flowers than he thought there would be. Does he have time to learn? Is that why he was given the vision of the bees, has it been the sensuality of flowers all along, not the earnest productivity of honey and the loyal service of Earth's pollinators?

If he understands the peaceable eroticism of flowers, will he be worthy of the kiss?

Is that the mission?

He buys a half-dozen purple roses, heavy with thorns, and takes them to Meg as a thank-you for her service in the hospital.

He realizes he is still wearing the clothes they gave him in the hospital -- and Dean's coat, of course -- and for a moment he is gripped by the fear that he is still there. That he never left. That he has hallucinated the bees and the flowers and Egypt and Montana and Dean's kindness and cruelty.

But no, that's -- highly unlikely. The past few days have been far stranger than he thinks he could invent alone. Although... Crowley is a very creative thinker, and he hates Castiel very much, more than enough to invest time and labor into a Hell designed to lure Castiel ever deeper into hope and madness.

**Am I alive?** he texts to Dean.

**If you're not I'm gonna fking kill you** , Dean replies immediately, and that is reassuring.

 

Castiel has high hopes that when he sees Dean again, their relative ease with one another by text message will translate.

It doesn't. Castiel blames only himself. When Dean is really by his side, when they're really free to reach out for one another, Castiel doesn't handle it well. His thoughts scatter in every direction, defeating his earnest desire to communicate something, anything, of all that he's learned, all that he still wants to know. He is distracted. He is...afraid.

There has never been a version of Dean Winchester in his life who isn't marked for war and soaked in blood. He shines in Castiel's eyes and always has, but it's only Castiel's weakness of the heart that makes it seems like starlight; the shine has always been Divine light reflected off the sharp edge of the Michael-Sword.

If Castiel comes back to Dean, he comes back to the battlefield. He can say again and again that he isn't here to fight, that he refuses to deal in death for the rest of his days, but the price of that choice is Dean.

It's unfathomably cruel, and a spike of indignation bisects the muffling fog of Castiel's guilt, the clearest single thought he's had since he woke from his long, dark sleep.

_All I wanted was a kiss, is that such a fucking crime?_

 

"Cass, I need a wingman," Dean says, and Castiel doesn't know what that means in this context. He's fairly sure Dean isn't inviting him out to meet women, and Castiel's skill set doesn't extend to aerial support in battle. After some minor confusion, it becomes clear that what he wants is transportation, and that is well within Castiel's skill set.

In the past he's laid his hand on Dean's shoulder to bring him somewhere on the wing, but... they're alone in the cabin, and this is the best opportunity Castiel has had yet to show a little spine. It might be his last opportunity, but he doesn't dwell on that thought. He stands close by Dean's side, close enough that his shoulder overlaps behind Dean's a bit, then he pushes their palms together, lacing their fingers. Dean's face shows surprise, but he doesn't refuse the touch. After a hesitant moment, he curls his hand tighter around Castiel's, and they fly.

He moves away once they reach their destination, but it feels like a natural step, not a shaking-off. "Thanks," he says, not meeting Castiel's eyes.

"My pleasure," Castiel says.

He forgets his shyness when Dean pulls the tarp off of the Impala. Castiel makes an involuntary noise of happy surprise; she's even more beautiful than in Castiel's memory, dark and luminous, made of long, liquid waves of metal. He crouches by her headlight, leaning his cheek on her muzzle and stroking her hood, and he whispers to her, "Hello, Your Highness. It's time to come home now."

"Just don't put any bees in her, please," Dean says.

"I'm happy she'll be with you if you die heroically," Castiel says.

Dean makes a noise that is both amused and disgruntled. "I love that you won't help save my life, but you'll definitely stage-manage my death. That's great."

He rests his forehead against the Impala's steel. "I don't want you to die, Dean."

"Yeah, yeah. Moral support, I know."

"I'm not afraid to die," he says. He knows Dean has thought the worst of him on many occasions, and he's sometimes been correct. But it still hurts to think that Dean suspects Castiel would protect his own life at the expense of his friends' lives. "I'm -- afraid I won't die. That God won't let me die. These resurrections -- I thought they were rewards, but they're my punishment. It's worse every time."

Dean doesn't have a quick answer for that, but finally he says, "I'm sorry you feel that way. I thought...some stuff was getting better, at least."

"I.... Some stuff is. But every time I come back, there's -- more killing to be done, and the weight of it.... I'll never be out from under these sins. He'll never let me atone."

"He--" Castiel can see Dean scowl in his peripheral vision. "Are we talking God stuff, here?" Castiel nods, and Dean says impatiently, "Oh, come on, fuck that guy. Who knows what he's gonna do or not do? You can't stand around trying to guess; you will never in your whole life be crazy enough to think like God, I promise."

Dean's promises always sound so authoritative. Castiel knows better, but he almost believes in them, every time. "I am not good luck, Dean," he says, more to remind himself than to convince Dean.

"Hey." Dean crouches down to his level and puts a hand on Castiel's cheek, turning his face so they're looking into one another's eyes. "Even if I did believe you were cursed, I wouldn't care. If the choice is leave you on the bench tomorrow or take you and your curse, it's not even a choice. I'd take you. No question."

"Oh," Castiel says. "That's...very reckless of you."

Dean smiles at him. "Yeah, well, you ain't special; everyone I know is cursed. I seem like good luck to you?"

"You seem like everything to me," Castiel says.

Dean rolls his eyes, but it feels like kindness -- like the rough, familiar kindness he shows his brother. He stands up, taking Castiel's arm and pulling him up as well. "Don't start this again," he says. "All this crap about my beautiful soul and the world on a string. I know you mean well, but I've seen how it ends, every time."

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable," Castiel says, "but I detect a note of forgiveness."

"Just settling up my affairs. I'm probably going to die tomorrow, you know."

"You'll enjoy Heaven," Castiel says.

Dean snorts. "Sure about that? You never seem to."

"It's not that kind of Heaven for us. We're there to serve." It's Castiel's home, but it's never been a place of rest. That's strange, when he thinks about it, but he rarely thinks about it. It's the Divine order, and even Castiel can occasionally take that for an answer.

"So where do you guys go when you get ganked?"

Castiel shrugs. "Nowhere, I suppose. There's nothing left of us to preserve, once our work is done."

Dean doesn't look pleased by that, which is normal. Humans almost universally show aversion to the idea of true oblivion. It feels unnatural to them; it _is_ unnatural to them. Dean drums his fingers idly on the hood of the Impala and then says, "I was in Heaven once."

"I remember," Castiel says. "For you it's a road.... Always was, always will be."

"It's all a little fuzzy -- got that way almost as soon as I left. But I remember...fireworks, and Sam was so happy.... I remember Mom." Castiel lets him have his silence. He wonders if he would find Dean easier to understand if he could relate to this. If he'd ever had anything like a mother himself. "Cass, how about a deal?" Dean says at last.

"I accept," Castiel says.

"I haven't--" Dean huffs in exasperation, gilded around the edges with fondness. "Okay. I can forgive you, for all of it, if you -- if you can forgive me, too."

Whatever expectations Castiel had, that was not a factor. "Forgive you for what?"

Dean stretches, sighs, cracks his neck. "It's kind of a long story. I've just been thinking for a while about -- Okay, you're gonna think I'm crazy, because you don't remember any of it."

"No, I'm used to that," Castiel assures him.

He looks briefly puzzled, then brushes that aside. "I promised you once that I'd save you," he says. "I knew that -- if you stayed loyal to me, and I didn't -- do my bit to look out for you -- I knew you'd wind up broken. That I had the power to break you. And that's a shit-ton of power, I get that; I promised myself, and I promised you, that I'd be careful with it, and the thing is, I wasn't, really, so what happened to you -- some of that's on me. Cass, I -- I need your forgiveness because you were dumb enough to fall in love with me and brave enough to tell me so, and I let you fall."

"I don't think you're crazy," Castiel says, "but I don't understand what you mean."

"You don't have to understand," Dean says. "Just say yes."

"Yes," Castiel says, because it's impossible not to follow Dean's lead when he steps forward to lead. It's moments like this when Castiel remembers that the Michael-Sword was never supposed to be merely a weapon, but an instrument tuned perfectly to the key of Heaven. "I accept your deal. And I'll go with you tomorrow. I'll -- do my best."

Dean nods, as if the reason he didn't bother asking for that as a condition of his forgiveness was that he knew Castiel would freely choose it anyway. He probably did know. He gives the roof of the Impala two affirmative pats and says, "Okay, I'd ask if you wanna ride along or meet up later, but the way you were about to give my car a tongue-bath, I think I know which way you're leaning."

"She's very pretty," Castiel says.

" _You're_ very pretty, but I show a little fuckin' class."

"Is that what you've been showing," Castiel says dryly as he opens the passenger door.

Dean unbars the barn doors and throws them open before taking his seat and turning over the Impala's engine with a little sigh of relief and an idle stroke across her dashboard to show his gratitude. He glances sidelong at Castiel and says, "Hey, uh, we're really gonna have to push our time to make the rendezvous tomorrow. Like, drive through the night. I know it's, uh -- the last night of the world and all...."

"Don't worry about me," Castiel says. "I've already heard your speech, and it isn't that good."

"Yeah, well," Dean says. "My holy-shit-we're-not-dead speech is _killer_."

"I look forward to it," Castiel says.

He prefers beginnings to endings anyway.  Don't most people?

 


	15. Purgatory / What's Up, Tiger Mommy?

The good news is, Dean survives damn near an entire year in Purgatory, and not a whole lot of people could've pulled that off, he knows.

The bad news is, somewhere in the first four minutes, Dean _loses his goddamn mind_. He's a lot less proud of that, and the fallout takes years to fix, and he's not making any excuses for himself, but--

Well, there's good news and there's bad news. That's just all there is to it.

 

He's alone and it's dark and there are eyes and he's _alone._

He shouts for Cass, and nothing happens. He shouts for Sam, just in case. He gets his back against a tree, but there's nothing else for cover, there's nothing. He's _alone_ , and the eyes begin to howl.

His hands are shaking as he tries to raise and brace the Beretta. He's hyperventilating and no one hands him a paper bag; he's _alone_ . He can barely see straight. He fires blindly in the general direction of the first gorilla-wolf to try a jump, and his dad yells at him not to be a dumbass, don't waste all his ammo if he can't count on the kill, only not really, because his dad's not here and nobody is here and Dean is going to die here, he's going to _die here alone_ , and that is more than enough bad news, he's not about to compound it by trying to punch a Hellhound's first cousin in the nose. This is exactly why ammo exists.

Somehow he doesn't die.

He prays his first prayer in Purgatory crouched down on all fours in the dirt, heaving for breath and thinking as loud as he can, _Please, please, please, I can't do this, I'll do anything, just don't leave me alone here. Cass -- God -- anyone. Someone. Please._

Somehow he gets on his feet, eventually. Somehow he always does.

 

Maybe someone listened to Dean's prayer, maybe not, but he gets Benny anyway, and he doesn't feel alone after that. They have a plan, they have weapons, they get along pretty great once Dean's over himself about the whole vampire thing, and even though Dean misses booze and soap and Sam and dessert and driving and Cass and a million other things, he feels like he's got his head together, like he knows what's up and what's coming next.

It's never really _daytime_ in Purgatory; when the sun comes out it just bathes everything in a soft gray gloom, but it's enough to make Benny a little sluggish, so they make camp around midday and midnight and do most of their walking and fighting in the hours between. Dean sleeps like a stone at night, he walks when it's time to walk, he fights when it's time to fight, he keeps on keepin' on, but there's always those three or four hours around noon when they try to hole up somewhere and Dean keeps watch over Benny. That's when he has time to hear his own thoughts, and he doesn't like them.

He misses Sam; they've been separated longer than this, and maybe that should make it easier, but it's actually harder. It gets harder every time. When he tries to picture his brother, Dean sees him with a broad, open grin, and he looks young. Probably because Sam _was_ a lot younger, the last time he regularly smiled like that.

Dean doesn't romanticize Earth. Yeah, it's where soap and whiskey and his Chevy live, and where you can buy more ammo once you run out, that's nice. But it's always been a rough neighborhood, at least for him and Sam. It asks a lot, and then a lot of the time it just takes.

Purgatory just is what it is, and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. Here, Dean is only ever as safe as his brains and his reflexes and his machete and his new best friend can make him, but that's all he expects, so it's fine.

It's not like Earth, where you sometimes get tricked into thinking crazy shit like _God's got a plan_ or _this time I'll be happy_ or _someone else will take care of it._

He doesn't like thinking that maybe he's built to function better in Purgatory than on his own home planet. He wonders if this is how Cass feels all the time, stranded in an uncivilized world he loves and hates, wondering what it means that he's optimized for it in a way he never really was for the place he supposedly belongs.

 _Cass, come on, man, help me out,_ he prays -- days, too, not just at night. Any time he has a quiet moment, any time his gazes softens for a minute, and scanning his field of vision for enemies turns into looking backwards into his own life. _I'm doing my best, but if you could give me a sign or something, point me in the right direction, this would go faster. Just...anything would help. I miss you._

If Cass doesn't answer, it's because he can't answer. Who even knows if he hears the same way in Purgatory? Maybe the rules here are different. Maybe he's lost his memory again, and he's hearing some stranger's voice and he thinks he's going crazy. Maybe anything, it could be anything, the reason he doesn't answer.

"Maybe he doesn't want to be found," Benny says once, gently.

"You don't know Cass," Dean says firmly. "You feed him one time and he comes around forever. He wants me-- He wants to be found."

Benny drops it.

Dean knows he's probably half-crazy by now, but he doesn't care. If this is how he dies, then this is how he dies, but he's not giving up on Cass again -- not in this world, not in any world. He'll turn every inch of Purgatory into a graveyard first.

 

When they finally make it to Cass, he's in a freaking _sun-dappled glade_ , crouching down to sip water from a pool like he's a goddamn unicorn. Dean has to laugh. He'd _sing_ if he could carry a tune. "Cass!" he shouts, and Cass stiffens up and looks at him with amazement and--

Fear. But Dean ignores that.

Dean hugs him like both their lives depend on it, and Cass -- leans into him a bit, even though he doesn't exactly hug back. Dean pulls away and covers the scruff on Cass' jaw with his palm. "New look," he says. "Not bad."

Just looking at Cass' face is like drinking in clean water, like eating til he's full for the first time since he got here. Jesus, Cass' face. It's everything Dean remembered it being and more, and Dean can't stop smiling.

"What are you doing here?" Cass says, touching the back of Dean's hand. Pushing it away just a little. "How did you find me?"

Dean drops his hand. "The bloody way. What's wrong, baby, are you hurt?"

"No, and I'm not a baby," he says shortly. "You shouldn't be here, Dean. It's not safe for you."

"I don't-- what's that supposed to mean?" Dean's not sure he even knows the dictionary definition of _safe_ anymore, and he sure as hell doesn't know how that word belongs within a country mile of his life. "Cass, there's a way out, I came to get you out. This is Benny, he knows how to get to a portal."

"Now, I never said it's an angel-friendly portal, I don't know about that," Benny says warningly, but Dean just gestures in his direction for him to shut up.

For the first time, something brightens in Cass' eyes; hope, Dean thinks. But then his face drops into wariness again and he says, "I'm glad. I want you to get out, Dean, but -- I can't help you. You're far safer without me."

"Bullshit--" Dean begins hotly.

"You _are_. Dean, I am an angel in a land of abominations. Monsters are one thing, but this place is full of Leviathan, and they have not been as forgiving of my past transgressions as you have. There is a price on my head here; they follow me, they track my movements night and day--"

"Yeah, join the club. Me and Benny, we watch each other's backs, and we'll watch yours, too. Safety in numbers, right? Cass, I'm not sure you're picking up what I'm putting down, here. This isn't an invitation; you _are_ getting out of here."

Cass scowls at him, which was kinda the point. Pissed-at-Dean Cass is a million times tougher than Has-Theories-About-Bees Cass. Pissed-at-Dean Cass is tougher than anyone Dean knows. " _You_ are getting out of here; _I_ am drawing off your pursuit. I can never atone for all my sins, but I can give you a chance to live, and that is what I want to die doing. Please respect my wishes."

Because if Dean's famous for anything, it's for being _respectful_ of other people's stupid decisions. "Hey, Benny," he says, "my friend and I need to talk alone for a minute. We're going over that ridge; you'll be okay here for a few?"

"I'll give a shout if I'm not," Benny says amiably. God, Dean loves how Benny hardly ever _argues_ with him. Is this how normal-people friendships function, just getting along and not threatening to murder each other every six weeks? Must be fuckin' nice.

He shoves Cass by the shoulder to start him walking, and Cass looks slightly resentful, but he walks with Dean up over the ridge, out of the sunlight and into the chill of the trees and their moss-soaked shadows. Cass finds a tree wider than he is and leans up against it, rubbing one eye like Sam used to when he was stubbornly insisting he wasn't ready for bed at all. "You trust this vampire?" he asks.

"I do, yeah. And the three of us are going to be one big happy family all the way to the portal, so I figured I'd start things off on the right foot by not calling you a fucking idiot right in front of him."

"I genuinely don't care whether or not he thinks I'm a fucking idiot," Cass says wearily. "I suppose I care what you think, but you've called me worse."

"Well, gee, Cass, it's nice to know you still care. I mean, the way you _fucked off on me_ the very first second you got the chance--"

"I know, I'm sorry!" he snaps. "In my defense, if I'd tried to discuss it with you first, you wouldn't have listened."

"No, I sure the fuck wouldn't have. In fact, I won't be listening to any bright ideas you have, now and for the rest of your life, that involve the words _this is how I want to die_ , I'll tell you that much for free. For once, me and God agree on something: you don't get to die. I don't care if you call it atonement, I don't care if it feels too hard to keep going, I don't care if you think it's the best thing for me, you just don't get to die. I'm sorry, but I need you alive. I need you."

What's so fucking hard to understand about that?

"Oh, Dean," Cass sighs. "I wish you'd said that to me two years ago."

Dean steps closer to him, and when Cass flinches slightly, he holds up his hands, soft and open, to show that this isn't going to be like the other times. He waits until Cass relaxes, then reaches out and lays both his hands in Cass' hair, holding him carefully, not letting him duck away. "You care about us, you want to fix us?" Dean says quietly. "Come with me. Come home with me, Cass. I'm asking you. Christ, I'm begging you, okay?"

Cass closes his eyes, then opens them, and for the first time Dean feels like when he's touching Cass, he's hanging onto a wild animal who wants to bolt. Is this something new? Or is Dean just seeing it clearly now, finally? "You can't ask me to _live_ in the _world_ as a favor to you. It's too much."

His voice breaks, and Dean knows he ain't just whistling Dixie; if Dean piles too much more on him right now, Cass is going to snap clean in half. "Not a favor, okay, not a favor," Dean assures him. "Make you a deal."

That gets a smile -- it's feeble, but it's a smile. "We had a deal. I believe that's how I got here."

Dean moves his hands to Cass' hips, settles them over the elastic of his waistband, nudges down just a little. He can feel Cass' abs twitch as his breath stutters. "You know what I want. I know what you want. I mean, what's the easiest possible solution here? Way I see it, we got the makings of your classic quid pro quo."

"Oh, you speak Latin now. I assumed you memorized all those exorcisms phonetically."

There's Dean's snarky bitch of an angel, finally. About damn time. Dean grins at him. "I got my GED, I know stuff."

"Take your hands off of me, you lunatic."

Sure, it's his turn to be the crazy one, Dean doesn't give enough of a fuck to deny it. He lost his goddamn mind four minutes into Purgatory, and now letting go of Cass is not an option, watching him disappear again is not an option, spending the rest of his life wondering what it would've been like to catch Cass and keep him is not an option. Dean's probably half-crazy and definitely out of options. It's this or nothing, it's now or never, it's _happening_ , and Cass will thank him for it eventually. Or else he won't. But by god, he'll be alive to resent Dean forever, if that's what he's got his heart set on. He'll be alive.

Dean hums as if he's considering it. He's not considering it. He pushes Cass' scrubs down a little more, til his hands are on the bare skin of Cass' hips and the tip of Cass' cock is poking up from the carelessly tied waistband. "You really should've played your cards closer to your chest," Dean says. "It's too late to start bluffing now. Look, we're in a time crunch, here, Cass, can we just skip all the dramatics?"

"The...dramatics?"

"Yeah, you know--" Dean pitches his voice lower and imitates Cass at his snootiest, saying, "Dean, my love for you is ethereal and pure, I couldn't possibly stoop so low as to just take my blowjob and stop whining about it." In his own voice, he adds, "I'm sorry it's not rose petals and satin sheets and however else you've been dreaming about it since girlhood. Purgatory ain't my idea of the perfect date either, but we work with what we got, and everybody's gotta make compromises sometime."

Cass doesn't do anything so gauche as to imitate Dean right back, but he repeats, "Everybody's gotta make compromises," rolling the words around on his tongue and dragging them out slowly enough to definitely count as mockery. "Does that line usually work for you?"

Dean slides his hand low across Cass' belly and watches him suck in a breath. "Honestly? I don't usually need a lot of lines."

"I believe you," Cass says, not mocking anymore. "I'm not -- being dramatic, Dean, I just -- I care about -- what happens. What happens between us."

"I know," Dean says softly. "You just -- uh. You said once that it's good for creating a bond, that it -- forges intimacy between two people, and I care about that. I know you feel -- whatever feelings, and that's -- sweet of you, it's flattering. But it doesn't stop you from slipping away every time I think we're getting close. So what about this doesn't make sense, Cass? You want to know what it feels like to come in my mouth, and I want you to, you know, _not vanish and then die._ This is win-win, if you would just -- not be such a princess about how it's not perfect. _We're_ not perfect. C'mon, Cass, what do you want, you want me to beg some more? Cut me a break. Just skip to the yes."

Cass touches his cheek, then lets his fingers drift down to brush across his mouth. "You know I could take what you offer and then still vanish. How much do you trust my word, after all I've done?"

He leans in, lipping Cass' fingers and grazing the tips with his tongue. He can taste the dirt under Cass' nails, and that should be gross, but it's really fucking not right now. Right now, he could lick a whole open grave's worth of dirt off Cass' body and he doesn't think he'd regret a second of it.

Maybe he wants a whole lot more than he's saying out loud, but the forging-intimacy thing, that's not a lie. It's righteous and everything, he's been told. And it's not exactly a great negotiating strategy to let Cass know he'd give the store away for free.

"How much do I think you'll want it more than one time?" Dean says with his very best smirk. "Let's just say I like my odds."

He takes a second to worry about whether he's writing a check that his body can't cash. Dean hasn't had a dick in his mouth for, what, twelve years? And even back then it's not like he had any blowjob superpowers, other than being hot shit and knowing it. Hell, more often than not he was high as a kite at the time, and you can't exactly put an experience on your resume if you barely remember it.

On the other hand, Cass is a billion-year-old virgin and desperately in love with him, so if Dean was ever set up in advance for success, this is it. Anyway, sex is just a confidence game, in every sense of the word, and nobody puts the "artist" in "con artist" like Dean Winchester.

Cass brushes knuckles down his cheek and says, "Dean, is this what you want?"

Cards on the table, he doesn't _want_ to be here at all. He doesn't _want_ to be throwing everything he's got against the wall and hoping some of it sticks, hoping Cass wants something, anything, bad enough to just -- not go, not leave Dean here, not end everything before it even starts. Fuck, maybe what Dean _wants_ is -- roses and satin sheets, or at least like a regular human date or something, but since when does what Dean wants count for anything?

He makes himself smile and says, "Try me."

That's pretty good, that's a line and he pulls it off just great, but in the very next second he blows it all, because when Cass tilts his head and leans in for the kiss, Dean jerks back in a wild, fierce panic that hits him too fast to shove it down.

Because, okay, he's trying. He is. Thirty years is too long to be a douche about this stuff, and it's not fair that Cass keeps paying the tab for Dean's hang-ups, and Dean knows this is wrong and stupid and borderline bigoted. He doesn't _want_ to be the _oh, it's not gay if you don't kiss on the mouth_ guy; nobody likes that guy, including Dean, but it's -- in his body, all those memories. All those times that he let himself cross a line if he had a good reason, if he could say _just helping out a buddy doesn't count_ or _we really need the cash, though_ or _dude, I was so bombed last night, things got pretty crazy, it happens sometimes._ All those alibis, all those reasons it's not what it looks like and he's not -- what he looks like, what everyone's smirked at him and told him he looks like since he was just a fucking kid. And he's not a kid now, and he doesn't care what people think, and he's not looking for an alibi since what's going on with him and Cass is gay as hell and has been for a long time now, but it's _in him_ , and logic doesn't matter. His heart kicks up and his muscles get tight and shaky and he doesn't know how to get this unstuck. How to be better than this.

 _Just do it, you dumb redneck, you fucking coward_ , he yells at himself, but it's too late. He's taking too long, and Cass sees him. Cass knows.

If he scares Cass off -- if this is the reason, the stupid reason that Dean gets his best friend killed and probably dies alone --

He doesn't know if Cass is reading his mind or not, but he's gazing deeply into Dean's eyes like he's looking for the secrets of the universe. He's frowning, but he doesn't seem angry. "We should take more time," he says, sad and firm and kind, and god he's -- he's such a mensch, Cass is such a genuinely good guy, and for whatever crazy reason, he loves Dean so much. And his ideas are always just so bad.

"No, we don't have time," Dean says roughly, and he drops to his knees in the wet moss and pulls Cass' scrubs down with him, he closes his eyes and nuzzles into the heat and tight muscle of Cass' groin, feeling the hot line of his cock like a bolt of lightning against the side of his face. Cass cries out his name, and Dean doesn't want to be here and he doesn't want everything in his life to be so damn compromised, but at least there's this to want, and fuck, does he ever want it.

He turns his head so his lips brush the side of Cass' cock, opens his mouth to breathe hotly on it while he feels his way up Cass' thigh toward it, figures out how the warm, smooth skin feels under his fingertips, and then how it fits into the curl of his hand. Cass' hand touches his head, the heel settling across Dean's temple and his eyebrow just firmly enough to let Cass push his head back so Dean is blinking up at him. "Say it again," he begs. Dean tries to show with his eyes that he doesn't know what Cass is talking about, because his mouth has fully converted into a whole different mode of operations and isn't fit to be making words right now. "Tell me-- " Cass licks his lips, and it seems like he's fumbling a little with the concept of speech, too. "-- why you're doing this. Why-- "

Dean catches up then. He puts his hand on Cass' elbow and then lets it slide down Cass' forearm, aware of the way all the hairs rise up as he goes, until he's got control of Cass' hand. He lifts it away from its grip on him, then puts a gentle kiss in Cass' palm to let him know there's no hard feelings about the grabbing thing. "Because I need you," he says hoarsely, and then he's leaning into Cass' hip again, breathing in weird, helpless gulps and mumbling, "Need you, need you, angel," until his tongue finds Cass' cock and he goes silent and starving.

Dean doesn't know if he's any good at this. He's never cared about that before, never put any effort into getting good at it, because putting effort into something means it matters, and he never wanted it to matter until now. Now he just tries to remember what he likes, which means a lot of tongue, long strokes like Cass is made of candy. Cass' hand clutches in the shoulder of Dean's jacket and his whole body rolls like he's trying to find and blend to Dean's rhythm, like Dean's teaching him how to dance. Dean catches the delicate lip of the head between his lips and sucks on it, and he thinks the chest-deep groan he hears is coming from him.

He wants this so much. All he needs is for Cass to want it more than he wants to die. That's not too much to ask, right? That should be an attainable goal.

When he takes Cass' cock into his mouth, Cass makes a giddy, breathy sound that's as close as Dean has ever heard him come to laughing. "Dean," he sighs out, shaky hand stroking over Dean's hair. "Your beautiful soul -- the world on a string -- oh, you're everything to me, you always were." Dean tries to nod and hum a little, just acknowledging that he heard that, and he loves the way it makes Cass' legs tremble.

Someday there's going to be more time, and more room, and maybe a bed (Dean's not picky about the type of sheets, particularly), and he'll be able to let Cass have this, let him fall apart and get weak and wobbly and make all the noise he wants. Cass deserves it.

Cass deserves someone who will look out for him, who's on _his_ side, who wants to sweep in and rescue Cass. In all this time, since the beginning of time or practically, Dean doesn't think Cass has ever had that, and that kinda breaks Dean's heart a little. He's such a good guy, and he doesn't even know what's left to live for if there's not someone barking orders at him. Maybe that's what it's supposed to be like to be an angel, but he's _Cass,_ he's so much more.

So Dean does his best for him, the best he can with the limited resources of Purgatory at his disposal. He twists his hand and his tongue, he angles his head so Cass can see the head of his cock pressing against Dean's cheek, he lets himself make weird grunty noises and even drool a little, because this ain't about looking cool for once. For once it ain't about Dean at all, and Dean thinks he's pretty good in bed, a generous guy, a guy who makes sure everyone has a good time, but he doesn't think he's ever done anything before that wasn't, at rock bottom, for himself.

And now it's the opposite: Dean's along for the ride, Dean's having a hell of a good time, but this is for Cass, and it's -- different. This, all of this, it's -- so different from every other time, from every other man or woman, that it feels like he's suddenly 33 years old and everything he thought he knew about sex was just page one. Or the Roman numeral pages before page one. The prologue.

Cass gasps sharply and comes without any more warning than a twitch and a tightening in his dick; he probably didn't even know that you're supposed to give fair warning. Dean swallows it all down -- one more first for him, one more thing he can't imagine being so okay with for anyone but Cass -- and the taste bites back on his tongue, bleachy and sour, but it's easy to ignore. He pulls off and wipes his chin with the back of his hand. Cass is looking down at him with huge, amazed eyes, his lips parted like he's got something to say but it's been smacked straight out of his brain. Dean smiles at him, and Cass makes a noise like he's been shot, grabs Dean's jacket with both hands and hauls him to his feet.

They get in each other's way immediately, trying to get Dean's dick out, trying to get Cass' leg in between his legs, hands bumping and hips shifting. Nothing quite works until Dean gets a hand in Cass' hair and pulls his head back, gets his mouth on Cass' pretty neck, on the hot skin vibrating with wordless urging and the throb of blood. Then suddenly they fall right into place and Dean is going hell-for-leather against Cass, so ready to be selfish, because all that other stuff was _great_ , yeah, but it's definitely time now.

He's quiet when he comes, his hands pressed tight to Cass' shoulder-blades and the backs of them rubbed raw against the tree bark, but he fully co-signs Cass' panted, "Yes, yes, I'll go with you, I'll go anywhere, it's a deal."

Dean smiles and puts his forehead against Cass'. "You're actually supposed to agree to the terms before you shake on it."

Cass lets out a sharp little breath that's almost a damn giggle. "Is that what that was? I thought we were having sex."

"'S my favorite part of Purgatory so far," Dean mumbles, feeling high as a kite, feeling strong as an Archangel as Cass shifts his arms around Dean's neck and hangs off of him for support. "I know," he says, rubbing Cass' back to soothe him out of his shakes. "I know, buddy. I'm here now. We're getting through this together. You and me."

"Until the portal?" Cass says.

Dean hesitates for a second, because that -- feels like a whole big, weird conversation that he doesn't know how to get at. What happens after the portal? _Something_ , he hopes, but it's not important to know what right now. It's just important to make sure they both get home. "Yeah, until the portal," he says. "Until we make it home."

He leans on the last word just a little. He wants Cass to hear it, to feel it, to believe that Dean's serious about this. He's done what he's done and what he'll do next, he's done it all to get Cass home alive.

After that -- they'll figure it out. Whatever happens, it'll be okay. They'll be okay as long as they make it home.


	16. A Little Slice of Kevin

For the past few lifetimes, the lives he's lived since he was delivered into the jaws of the mission that destroyed him, Castiel has been listening to Dean Winchester's prayers.

 _Cass_ , he says.

_Cass, you out there? Cass, come in. Cass, can you hear me?_

_I know you can hear me, Cass. You're killing me, Cass, come on._

_Cass. Cass, I got something for you. Cass, I need to see you._

_Where are you, Cass?_

_Hiya, Cass. Cass, it's me._

_Dammit, Cass, don't ignore me. Help me out, here, Cass. Cass, pick up the phone!_

_Cass. Where are you, Cass? Cass, I need you._

They are unorthodox prayers, but Castiel stopped noticing that long ago. There is heart behind them, and at times there is even faith.

Heaven hears the prayers of the faithless just the same as the faithful, but Castiel, at least, has always preferred the latter on an aesthetic level. There's a music to faith, Earthly words coming into harmony with the overtones of Heaven.

Dean's prayers are generally harmonious, even when he's at his most aggrieved. Everything about him is in harmony with Heaven, which Castiel never tells him, because he would not take it as a compliment.

Once in his naivete, Castiel would have meant it as a compliment, but now he simply observes it. Dean is a thoroughbred, the product of generations' worth of Heavenly machinations designed to create the best possible vessel for an Archangel. He is...awe-inspiring, but that in itself is not necessarily a compliment, and as time goes by, it becomes less and less relevant.

Awe is no longer what Castiel feels when the righteous man calls his name in prayer.

He has not prayed to Castiel since Purgatory. Of course he hasn't; he believes Castiel to be dead.

Castiel reaches toward him, but he is weaker than he's ever been, barely a facsimile of his former self, and every time he pushes his grace toward a goal, he feels a pressure as if he's stressed at the seams. He fears this body will unknit itself, unravel from around him, that this once-reliable vessel is about to fail him at last. Flying is easy, but he flickers like a ghost every time he tries to make landfall, as if the Earth plane isn't sure whether or not to receive him.

He tries to pray to Dean, even though such a thing shouldn't be possible. Who is to say, at this point, what is impossible? Castiel is an impossible creature by any logical reckoning.

 _Dean_ , he says.

_Dean, I'm here, where are you?_

_Can you hear me, Dean? Dean, I need your help._

_Dean, forgive me. Please, I know I've caused you pain, but I'm lost, I have no one else. Dean, if you did love me once, please...._

_Can you hear me? Hello, Dean?_

A few times, he sees Dean's face, and Dean's eyes widen in shock, as though he can see Castiel too.

When he tries to speak, the effort fails, and Earth flickers out around him, pulling Dean away as if on an ebbing tide.

 

When he does make contact, Dean is not happy to see him.

Dean is not _unhappy_ to see him, precisely. Dean is skeptical, already calculating the price for Castiel's mysterious rescue and wondering who will end up paying it. Dean is anxious, beaten down over the years by too many miracles that sliced like a razor when he tried to bite into them. Dean is uncertain about who Castiel is now, and who Castiel is to him. They parted under -- difficult circumstances.

He's not sorry that Castiel is alive, but he's afraid of happiness, and Castiel does not blame him a bit.

Sam is happy that Castiel is alive. Castiel appreciates that, even if he finds it far more difficult to understand than Dean's reservations. When has Castiel's sudden re-entry into their lives ever been much cause for celebration?

"I'm dirty," Castiel says, looking down at the clothes he's been wearing for a year and a half. He's so tired of them. He clung to them for a while after the hospital, because to put on another suit and tie felt like a promise, a statement that his convalescence was over and he was ready to return to work. Now he...should probably feel some affection for them, the way he does for his coat, because of the memories associated with them, but he doesn't.

Dean's fingers have tied and untied the threadbare drawstring over and over. Dean has tugged at the elastic in the waistband, hooked a finger in the V-neck and yanked him closer with a knowing smile, pushed and pulled this clothing away to bare Castiel's skin to the wind and water of Purgatory, to the earth and fire of Dean's hands and tongue.

Castiel should feel something about these clothes -- these memories. Sentiment, nostalgia, even embarrassment. He should feel something.

"Yeah, well," Dean says. "Purgatory will do that to you."

Purgatory has done things to Castiel that there is no coming back from. He wants no mementos of it.

He wants the death that was stolen from him.

"You want to take a shower?" Sam says gently.

"Thank you," Castiel says.

In the motel bathroom, Castiel strips off his coat, the scrubs, his boxer shorts, and leaves them all in a heap on the tiles. It's strange to stand there completely naked; he doesn't remember the last time he did that.

He turns on the water and waits for it to warm.

He tells himself he's not waiting for Dean to open the door. He doesn't genuinely believe that will be happening, but he's waiting for it anyhow. Nothing but a conditioned response; whenever they found a water source that seemed defensible in Purgatory, whenever they thought an hour's peace was attainable, he and Dean would rinse and wring out their clothes, would sluice water over one another to wash away some percentage of the filth, would pull each other deeper out, deeper under, seizing the opportunity to touch and tangle together in some semblance of play. Those memories, it seems, Castiel does have some nostalgia for -- Dean's squawk when Castiel splashed water in his face just to see it drip from his elegant eyelashes, Castiel's feet skidding along Dean's wet thighs when he tried to push them apart, even Benny's indulgent smile when they padded still dripping back to the campsite, leaving muddy, trackable footprints behind. ( _Your sweetheart_ , he always called Castiel when he spoke to Dean, and Dean would sniff sometimes, but he'd never make the very obvious points that Castiel was far from sweet and only temporarily his.)

None of that means they will be bathing one another in the future, however. Why would they?

The shower is nice. It's -- more than nice. Castiel doesn't know what to call it; a year in Purgatory has played havoc with his vocabulary, redefined words like _good_ and _happy_ and _friends_ and _home_. He's on Earth now, and he doesn't know what language he speaks.

He opens his mouth and drinks from the spray. With his grace so depleted, his body needs all the restorative help it can get, so he's been trying to hydrate whenever he feels solid enough. It feels decadent to waste so much pure water. His skin runs hot when he thinks about how greedily Dean would drink when they found a fresh source, how exciting Castiel found his mouth, his throat, his soft noises of relief. Purgatory was strife and fear and weariness and deprivation; whatever their bargain, there was never time or privacy or safety enough for Castiel to drink all he wanted of Dean, and so it was never possible to acclimate, to become jaded and take for granted the things Dean's body did when he felt want.

Castiel's hand rests on the shower's knob. He has an image in his head of twisting it all the way to the left, seeing how hot the water would run, if it would scald his flesh and distract him from -- this, all of this, from these memories that he allowed himself to make in the belief that he'd be carrying them as comfort to his grave, not _living_ with them.

Instead he turns it to the right. Cold showers, he thinks, are the traditional thing.

Sam's shaving kit sits beside the sink, and after his shower is finished, Castiel holds it in his hands for what feels like far too long, weighing his choices. He'll owe Sam a new razor if he does this. That's not his primary concern, but it's easier to think about than...

_C'mon, I'll do you, too, Dean says cheerfully, brandishing his machete. He laughs at whatever look he sees on Castiel's face and says, Spent half the night sharpening it last night, this is your best chance. Look at me, see? Clean as a whistle, not a scratch on me. Come on, you big baby, I promise this is not how you're going to die._

_As I lack the particular brand of vanity that insists on shaving with a blade that's been decapitating Leviathan for six months, Castiel says, I think you'll just have to keep looking at the beard._

_Looking ain't the issue, Dean says, and Castiel has to think about that for a moment before he realizes it might be uncomfortable against Dean's skin, and he feels immediately guilty. Dean laughs -- Castiel is always so transparent to him -- and says, That's what you get for calling me vain._

_Is it -- bothersome? Castiel asks, and Dean's face softens when he realizes Castiel's concern is genuine. He leans forward, bracing his forearm on Castiel's shoulder, and rubs his cheek against Castiel's once, roughly, like a scent-marking cat. Castiel catches his breath and touches Dean's back, covered only by his t-shirt in this weather._

_Oh, it gets me a little bothered, Dean rumbles just below his ear. Castiel can't hold up his end of the banter anymore, so he just closes his arms around Dean's waist, lets them nuzzle each other as they kneel in the dirt beside a passably mirror-still pool of water at high noon in a sweltering Purgatory summer._

_You're vain because you're beautiful, Castiel murmurs against the corner of his eye. You're so beautiful._

_Eh, that's just my soul, Dean teases, and Castiel draws him closer, bends his head toward Dean's shoulder, feels Dean's fingers squeeze tight in his hair. Don't worry about it, Dean says. A little beard-burn's not even a thing. Price of admission._

_I think you've paid for me many times over, Castiel says._

_Dean rests his chin against Castiel's scalp and says, Cheap at twice the price._

Castiel shakes it all off and turns on the faucets.

He turns to look for a washcloth to wipe the steam from the mirror and sees a suit and shirt and tie on a wooden hanger on the back of the bathroom door. He stares blankly at it, then looks down at the floor. His old clothes are gone, except for the trench coat, which is clean and folded, only lightly damp from the shower mist. He looks back at the hanger. No one has been in this room except him; he would absolutely have noticed.

He supposes he could take this as a gift, but he feels rigid and resentful and heavy with defeat.

It's not a gift. It's a message. _Time to get back to work._

 

Castiel lets himself hope that they won't speak of any of this. They have Sam as a windbreak between them, and a young prophet's life hangs in the balance, so maybe they just -- won't. Not yet. Castiel tries to make himself unobtrusive in the backseat of the car, but he must be doing something wrong anyway, because Dean's voice is tight with frustration when he says, "Cass, can I talk to you outside?"

Sam glances in the rearview mirror -- checking Castiel's face for signs of distress, he thinks. He's seemed protective of Castiel throughout this reunion, set on edge by Dean's grim silences and Castiel's lack of answers. Castiel gives him a small nod before he lets himself out of the car to follow Dean into the road.

"What?" he asks Dean flatly.

"What?" Dean repeats in disbelief. "What. God, I dunno, Cass, do you wanna -- I mean, _say_ something for yourself?"

"I honestly don't know what you want to hear."

"Oh, so it's dealer's choice? Okay, then, let's see, how about this. How about you tell me that what I think happened in Purgatory didn't happen." Castiel's stomach rocks violently; he's momentarily convinced that Dean means -- all of it. That none of it ever happened. That fear settles as he keeps talking. "Tell me -- tell me I couldn't hang on, that I wasn't strong enough. Tell me I fucked it up -- I was weak, I couldn't get you out, I left you there, it's my fault. Lie to me, I don't care, tell me anything. Just tell me you didn't let go."

It's a generous offer, he supposes. They could chalk it all up to a tragic mistake, and maybe one day Dean, at least, would come to believe those memories were the truth. "I won't lie to you," Castiel says. "Believe what you want to believe."

"I'm gonna fucking kill you," Dean says, rubbing his hands over his face. "You don't even know why I'm so mad, do you?"

"Not really," Castiel admits. "Normally it's because I've deceived you in some way, you're very sensitive to that sort of thing. But now you say you don't want the truth, so I really can't keep track of what you want and when you want it, Dean, I'm sorry. You said we should both get what we wanted, and it seemed to me that we did."

"Yeah, you were pretty careful about that fine print, weren't you? There I was, feeling guilty because you kept saying _until the portal_ like you thought I was going to dump you once you weren't literally the only man alive. Took me a few days after I got back to catch up, because you know I'm a little slow. The portal was when you always planned to dump _me_ , isn't it? From the very beginning. From the _very fucking beginning_ , Cass."

Castiel looks at the ground. He isn't fond of Dean's vocabulary for this, complaining about _dumping_ as though this were some silly nighttime soap opera. Nobody _dumped_ anybody. They simply...went their separate ways, to live the lives that awaited them. "How could I have told you?" he says. "You would have harried me about it day and night. If I'd told you that Purgatory was my penance, we never would have-- I wanted to help you escape. And I wanted us both to -- have some peace, if we could."

" _Peace?"_ Dean says, appalled. "You call that _peace_?"

It's probably not the right word. Castiel doesn't know what the right word is. "Some happiness," he says, low and hoarse. He knows that _happiness_ is probably further still from the mark. There are no words for what Dean has been to him. For what Dean gave him in the ostensible last year of Castiel's life. "You would never have let us have -- what we had--"

"Don't tell me what I wouldn't do," Dean says hotly. "I make my choices, I--"

"--if I hadn't agreed to your damned deal!" Castiel says over him, refusing to acknowledge the interruption. Dean falls silent, startled. "I'm sorry I let you think it meant something it didn't," Castiel says. "But I didn't lie to you. I held up my end of the bargain."

Dean's still at a loss for words when Mrs. Tran pulls up to mile marker 96.

 

"That was a bonehead move back there," Dean says, and Castiel bites back the urge to say _you're welcome_. It's better if he doesn't get drawn into these arguments. It's better if he sticks as close as possible to the original plan. He's said his goodbyes to Dean, in his own heart if not in so many words for Dean to pick apart and reject. "You could've gotten yourself killed. Why didn't you wait for me?"

 _Because then I could've gotten you killed, you insufferable jackass_ does not count as disengaging. "Well, I didn't get killed," he says. "And it worked."

"And if it didn't?"

Castiel sighs and looks away. He shouldn't have come here at all. It was a mistake to let himself be pulled back into Dean's orbit just because they were on the same plane of existence. "Then I'd be dead," he says flatly. "That sounds like my problem, not yours."

"Well, that's where we disagree," Dean says. "Because from where I'm standing, you being dead sounds like a huge fucking problem for me."

"Why?" Castiel snaps. "Why, Dean?"

He glances around shiftily, then growls, "You _know_ why."

Castiel snorts. "You'll get over it."

He doesn't intend it as a barb, but he sees the impact as it lodges in Dean, the way it rocks him back a little on his feet. He stands frozen for a second, then says quietly, "No. I won't. I wouldn't."

It's too much. Too close to what Castiel wants it to be. He regrets coming here. He resents mightily whatever force dragged him from his war-prayers of confession and supplication. "I hope you're wrong," Castiel says. "You can't save me, Dean. Even if I wanted to be saved, it isn't your responsibility. You try too hard to save the world, your will is so strong you try to drag all of Creation along behind you, you don't _ask_ what the rest of us want, you won't _listen_. God. I see so much of Heaven in you sometimes, Dean. So much righteous domination."

"Oh, fuck you," Dean says, with no heat behind it. "You and Sam. The two of you should get a place together and just wait to die, if that's what you're hell-bent on doing."

"It was meant to be a compliment," Castiel sighs.

"Yeah, well. Not your best work."

Sam sidles up to them hesitantly as Dean slams the trunk closed. "Hey. Everything okay?"

"Fine," Castiel says. "Just -- wrapping up some things."

"Okay," Sam says. "Well -- okay, good. Hey, Garth is going to--"

 

_There is a clean place, a quiet place, with a desk where work is done. Everything here is exactly as it was not in Purgatory._

_"_ _You're home," the woman says._

_He knows that voice. She is not his friend._

_This is not his home._

_There's so much light. There is so much silence. No one prays to Naomi. No voices reach this place. He feels trapped under glass, and he longs for -- anything, anything but this -- for dirt and water and insects and the screech of Leviathan as they unhinge their jaws -- for the strange and painful peace of lying at Dean's side and counting his scars by touch._

_"_ _You should have fallen with Michael," Castiel says. "You were his, weren't you?"_

_Michael's spymaster. Michael's torturer. He remembers._

_He would pray for help, if he knew any name of power but Dean's._

_Naomi smiles at him and says, "I was always my own."_

_"_ _Do whatever you want to me," he says. "I won't let you touch the Winchesters."_

 _"_ _Oh, Castiel," she says. She won't stop smiling, and he feels the curve of it like the blade of a machete, stripping off his skin and revealing endless raw flames of destruction, wheels within wheels lubricated by blood. This is how she sees him._

_She was always the one who could see him._

_"I_ _can't touch them," she says. "But you. Oh. Oh, I know you can."_

_No, he says, but he can't hear himself._

_He coils and thrashes in the pure white light, splattering venom and grace in every direction. Naomi flicks it lightly off of her sleeve._

_NO!_

_He can't hear himself. No one prays here._

_Heaven flickers out around him, pulling Naomi away as if on an ebbing tide._

 

"--track down the other piece," Sam says. "You're with us on this one, right, Cass?"

He squints as if into a blinding light, spots appearing in front of his vision. It's strange and distracting.

"Cass?" Sam repeats. "You okay?"

"I'm -- I'm fine." As fine as could be expected, given the emotional strain of the past few days, he supposes. "And yes, I'm with you. If that's all right," he says carefully in Dean's direction.

Dean shrugs and nods, as though he has no particular role here except to acquiesce to whatever Sam and Castiel decide between them. That's rich, Castiel thinks. The day that Dean Winchester doesn't have an opinion to offer....

Disengage, he reminds himself. What other choice does he have? The filth of Purgatory and his many sins against Dean can't be washed away, any more than the seas of blood he let loose in Heaven and Earth. Dean can't drag him back to righteousness, can't rebuild him, can't solve him, can't comfort him.

 _I long to die if what thou speak'st speak not of remedy_ , Castiel thinks, and that does give him comfort. He's always found that poetry soothes as prayers never did for him, though for most of his life he felt ashamed of yearning for anything more than he did for communion with God. He is not ashamed anymore; Shakespeare has loved him back as God never did, and so have the bees and the flowers and the Winchesters, and he is not ashamed to have grasped after a little bit of joy for himself when and where he could. It didn't seem to matter one way or another to God, after all.

He walks away. It's not hard to do.

Letting go of Dean's hand was hard to do, but he did it. He chose it, willed it into being, fought Dean for it and won.

He's stronger than they think he is.


	17. Sacrifice

"Took you long enough," Dean says when Castiel joins him at the bar.

"Do you think I could order a drink before you start needling me?" Castiel sighs. "I don't pretend I'll be able to catch up to you, but still."

"Oh, gimme a break," Dean says. "You can drink me under the table and you know it."

He probably can. He's never put that to the test, nor does he imagine Dean would allow him to. Dean is rarely far from his next sip of alcohol, but to his credit, Castiel has never seen him inebriated to the point of loss of muscle control. He wonders if Dean has ever let himself slip so completely outside of his own control.

"Hey, buddy," Dean says, louder for the bartender's attention. "Put whatever my friend wants on my tab, okay?"

Dwight Charles turns from his cash register and smiles when he sees Castiel. "Hey, it's you," he says, and then for Dean's benefit he explains, "This guy broke up a fight here this morning. Real weirdos, too, kinda crazy eyes. Saved my life, for all I know. I think he can drink for free."

"Hello," Castiel says. "I very much doubt I saved your life. But I was glad to help."

"What's your poison, Clark Kent?" Castiel blinks, not sure if he's more surprised that he understood that reference, or at the flattery itself.

"Macallan's," Dean says.

That makes up Castiel's mind for him. "A porter, please," he says, and Dwight chuckles warmly. He has a nice laugh.

Castiel nods his thanks when Dwight puts the stein in front of him. Dwight holds his gaze a bit longer than humans are typically wont to do, and Castiel feels a certain ease flowing from him that contrasts sharply with Dean's thrumming tension. He likes it. It feels like his better memories of home.

When he realizes he's probably keeping Dwight from his duties, he drops his eyes, watching his thumb make half-circles around the rim of the glass, and Dwight moves on. "Dude," Dean says, "were you flirting with the bartender?"

"Of course not," Castiel says. "I don't even know how to flirt."

Dean snorts. "You were sure batting those big blue eyes like you do. You know he's going to meet his soulmate any minute now, right?" Castiel shrugs. "Wow, you can really pick 'em, can't you?"

"I suppose I can," Castiel says.

"So that's your type now?" Dean asks, clearly expending far more effort than usual to achieve his lightly mocking tone. "You like 'em beefy?"

The proper answer is almost certainly _mind your own business_ , but the force of long habit compels Castiel to answer the question honestly. "The vessel doesn't mean much to me. I thought he had kind eyes."

"Now you're making me feel shallow," Dean says.

"You are shallow," Castiel says. He didn't realize that was in dispute.

"Can we focus on work, here?" Dean says snappishly. Castiel takes a drink and gestures vaguely in his direction, inviting him to do so if he pleases. "Are you sure about all this? I mean, it's one thing, me and Sammy boarding up the gates to the Pit, but you.... You're -- you're boarding up Heaven, and you're locking the door behind you."

That is a concise recap, yes. "I know," Castiel says.

"You did a lot of damage up there, man. Do you think they're just gonna let that slide?"

"Do you mean do I think they'll kill me? Yeah. They might."

"So this is it. Your big suicide mission. I know you've been gearing up for it for a while now."

Castiel sighs, because this is the fight they'll apparently never be finished with. "It's not a suicide mission. At least, I hope it's not."

"Oh, so now you don't want to die? You really blow hot-and-cold on this stuff, Cass. You realize that once you're dead, you don't get to keep changing your mind, right?"

"Thank you, your condescension is always helpful. I hope my brothers and sisters have compassion and allow me to live; I understand if they do not. This is my atonement, Dean, but...that doesn't mean what I once thought it meant."

Dean finishes the whiskey in front of him, pretending to be interested in the bow-hunting program on the bar's television. "Do you -- want to talk about it?" he finally asks. "I mean. I know we don't -- really do that anymore, but. For old time's sake or something."

 _Because we may never talk again_ , he knows Dean is unwilling to say. Castiel thinks over the offer carefully, sipping his beer and letting his gaze soften as it skims over the line of Dean's profile. He supposes he'll regret it if he says no. "My death doesn't balance the lives I took," he says softly. "Nothing can, but if anything could, how could it be -- more death? I've been thinking.... Ever since my return, I've been looking for...a new mission, I suppose, although I'm loathe to call it that. Nothing that's laid upon me, nothing that I have to carry until it breaks me. I just want to...pollinate something."

Dean laughs hoarsely. "Of course you do. I should've known Has-Theories-About-Bees Cass was behind all this somehow."

Castiel can't help but smile. "Well, I _do_ have theories, not so much about bees as about bees as a synecdoche for the biosphere."

"In English, Cass, God."

"In English," he muses aloud. "In English...I want something beautiful to grow because I was here on Earth. I think that's what everyone wants, or at least everyone who loves this place. I've tried to do my duty, Dean. I've tried to be obedient. Then I tried to save the Earth, tried to improve it. That felt like a duty, as well. I've been so obsessed with what's...demanded and desired of me, and it's led me astray every time. The only thing that ever made me better -- the only thing that I'm proud of now -- is that...when I saw something that struck me as beautiful, I stopped to love it. That's all I ever did that was good. That's all I have left to give."

After a moment, Dean says, "That's not what you told Kevin."

Castiel winces a little at the memory. "Yes, that.... I hope you'll deliver him my apologies."

"You weren't wrong, though," Dean says. "We do what we do and we shut up about it; we can sleep when we're dead." Castiel turns to look at him curiously; the flat, gruff words don't sound quite like Dean, who is -- flat and gruff in a different way. Dean grimaces a little and waves at Dwight for another whiskey. "Or at least that's what my dad used to say."

"Yeah, mine, too," Castiel says. "More or less. I may not have been wrong in what I said to Kevin, but I'm still sorry I said it. Creation is full of people who will quote him chapter and verse about his duty, about suffering and obligation. I was one of them once, but I'm trying to...choose to be someone else. Kevin has been called to serve, and to serve -- it shouldn't mean to suffer. To serve should mean to love."

"Should, huh?" Dean says. "Yeah. Sounds nice."

"It's our foundational story," Castiel says. "That before God -- withdrew, he entrusted us with the care of humankind. Lucifer Fell because he wouldn't love or serve you, and we who remained in Heaven, who called ourselves God's faithful -- we told one another we were different. If we believe the things we say.... We are so depleted now, so frightened and lost. I don't want the gates to close as a punishment. I have to believe that if we can restore our own order, if we can remind ourselves who we truly are...."

He has to believe they are still the Host of Heaven, in spite of all the violence and the lies. These past months have tested his faith severely, and he finds that, beyond all reason, he has located where faith hides -- not in the far reaches of the cosmos where God has erected his impenetrable fortress, but in Castiel himself, from his mantle to his marrow.

Of course, he's been wrong many times in the past. The wounds from his most recent encounter with God's faithful are still fresh. He thinks of Metatron and is moved to pity; he doesn't love Metatron, but he wouldn't give the Adversary himself into Naomi's hands if he could avoid it.

She can't be who they are, though.

"You really think this spell punches the cosmic reset button?" Dean asks.

"Oh, I doubt it will be as simple as the press of a button, but.... I don't know. I don't know what I believe. Just that -- things have to change. I've always wanted to do something great -- to be a great hero, or a champion of the defenseless, or -- some other prideful fantasy. You see how well that worked out for all of us. I come back to the bees and the flowers, again and again. To all these tiny, perfect things that blanket the Earth and sustain it. Dean, this world -- it didn't break me in battle or through tempting me to sin. It broke me with this -- this unbearable beauty that won't let me look away. To live, maybe forever, in exile from it...."

As penance, death could never compare.

He didn't mean to say so much. He didn't mean to reveal how much it hurts. Dean is notorious for behaving rashly when he sees someone in pain, and Castiel scowls into his half-full drink, trying to radiate prickly independence. The last thing he wants is for Dean to concoct some half-baked heroics that he thinks will make this easier for Castiel.

"I don't think it broke you at all," Dean says roughly. "I just... I think you're too hard on yourself, Cass. I don't know about -- anything, really, I don't have theories, I never really did. I just -- know you've been what I needed in a friend, and so if you're broken, I guess-- I guess you're just the right amount of broken."

It doesn't really mean anything. It doesn't really change anything. But it's a kind thing to say, and Castiel aches with the memory of a time when Dean's kindness didn't come as a surprise. "Thank you," Castiel says. "I.... Thank you."

"So is that your penance? You were happy here, and now you're -- going away, and that's supposed to -- make God happy, or what?"

Castiel smiles and lifts his beer in Dean's direction. "Fuck God."

"Amen," Dean says, clinking his freshly full tumbler against Castiel's glass.

"It's not penance, it's pollination," Castiel says. "Someday the gates will open again. Someday an angel will come to Earth for the first time and fall in love. I would give anything for that angel, Dean. I don't know who it is or when, but after all the pain I've caused, I just want to protect -- that one angel. I want them to love, and be happy, and not fear punishment. I don't know how else to save the world."

"Cass, Cass, Cass," Dean says, and his voice is chiding, but warm. "I can't believe you're still trying to save the world at all. It's a sucker's game and you know it."

"Aren't you doing the same?"

"Honestly, I'm just trying to fuck over demons. I can't say I really do believe...in anything but payback." Castiel should probably argue, but he's always found Dean's two-fisted righteousness as charming as it is frustrating. He hopes these demon trials succeed and Dean learns what it's like to live in a world that isn't constantly taking on Hellfire like water into a leaky boat, but in the meantime, he doesn't intend to deny Dean the joy of revenge. Dean's spent a lifetime's worth of forgiveness on Castiel alone. "Goddamn," Dean says, "this Cupid is taking his sweet-ass time."

"You know how angels are," Castiel says wryly. "Timing is not our strong suit."

Dean slides off his barstool and says, "I gotta hit the head. Shout or something if anything exciting happens." He claps Castiel's shoulder as he passes behind, and Castiel turns his head a little to watch him go, mostly out of habit.

"You two okay over here?" Dwight asks him, coming a little closer once Castiel is alone. "Sounded like kind of a heavy conversation."

"Oh, nothing out of the ordinary," Castiel says. "God, forgiveness, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I'm sure you hear it all the time."

Dwight laughs. "Hey, can I ask you a personal question?"

"Of course," Castiel says.

Dwight nods off in the direction of the bathroom and says, "That guy your boyfriend?"

"No," Castiel says. "He's... Hard to explain. But no." Dwight smiles less broadly than before, but sweetly, as though he understands Castiel all too well and holds nothing against him. "He's a friend," Castiel says, and then wonders -- what's the point of feeling defensive? He has no secrets left, no one left to deceive. He smiles back at Dwight and says, "I suppose I used to think he was my destiny, years ago."

"Yeah, we were all young once," Dwight says. "He's cute and all, but for what it's worth, I think you can do better."

That's a novel idea. Castiel doesn't recall ever thinking about better than Dean, or even other than Dean. It's been -- Dean, always. Only Dean. "Do you?" Castiel says, and because he's always had good luck befriending cats, he experiments with the slow-blink, and it seems to work on bartenders, too. Dwight's face flushes a little above his beard, and he looks down, too, so they are both exchanging gestures of trust -- or, as Dean would have it, _batting their eyes_.

This isn't so hard. With a little practice...

Well, there won't be time for that. Still, it's nice to get something right.

He doesn't notice he's smiling until Dwight points to him. "See, there?" he says. "Man who can see a smile like that and won't move heaven and earth to hang onto it? Well, he just doesn't deserve nice things." Dwight is wrong about Dean, but Castiel can shut up and take a compliment, so he slow-blinks again and thinks about endless layers of tiny, beautiful things, each doing their own part to make the Earth bloom. Ninety percent of this world's splendor is the labor of humble insects, and if Castiel spends eternity in exile, he'll devote ninety percent of his prayers to the smallest things he can remember, and the other ten percent to Dean Winchester.

"What's your name?" Dwight asks, and Castiel finds it a strange and lovely little question.

"It's...Cass," he says.

"Cass," Dwight says thoughtfully, testing it out. "That's a cute name."

"Thank you," he says. "I think so, too."

 


	18. I'm No Angel

It's not the first time he's seen Cass die, but it's the first time he's seen Cass _dead_.

Cass exploded at Stull and exploded underwater in the reservoir; he didn't technically die after Dean watched him pulled back through the sheet lightning of the Purgatory hatch, but Dean grieved him like he did. But it isn't until Dean sees him tied to a chair, pale and blood-streaked and still, that he's had the particular shock of looking for Cass and finding _Cass' corpse_ instead.

It's so much worse, somehow. Dean's always hated the things that look like Cass but aren't.

He touches Cass' chest, and it's still warm; Dean was almost (almost, but not) here in time to save him. He cups Cass' face in his hands, and it feels so familiar, sexy stubble and all, even though it's been months since Dean's been this close to him. A part of him thinks maybe a kiss would somehow wake Cass up, even though the rest is telling him, _This is a dead body, dumbass, and your life's not a fucking fairytale._

It's not Cass. It's just a dead body, an _empty vessel,_ and Cass can't hear him shouting his name, and Dean doesn't know if Cass was even human long enough to have one good memory to build a heaven out of.

It's just a dead body, and still Dean doesn't want to let go.

He doesn't try the kiss, either, though. Even if he did believe in fairytales, Dean knows he sure as shit ain't no Prince Charming.

 

Cass sleeps most of the way back to Lebanon, except when Dean wakes him up and makes him drink more Gatorade. It's a little freaky; he's never seen Cass asleep before, but now he has seen Cass dead, so it's hard not to be at least a little freaked out. Dean tries to keep watch in the rearview mirror, checking again and again to make sure he can see the movement of Cass' breathing, and he steers off onto the rumble strip twice and has to correct course sharply. Sam waits until the second time before he pointedly says, "I could drive if you want."

"Shut up," Dean says.

"I'm just saying," Sam says. "If you want to sit in the backseat and regurgitate some food for him like a little rescue bird, I could--"

"Get your ass kicked, is what you could do," Dean says.

"Don't be mean," Sam says cheerfully, full-on channeling his inner bratty little brother. Dean wants to smack him, then reach backwards through time and smack him at the age of eleven, too, the little shit. "You know I love the Dean and Cass Show. It's better than Dr. Sexy."

"We're _friends_ ," Dean growls.

Sam rolls his eyes.

 

"Hey, are you okay?" Sam asks softly a few hours later.

Dean glances involuntarily through the open doors, where Cass is shuffling around exploring Dean's library, all sleepy and barefoot and showered and _freshly fucked_ and wearing Dean's sleeping t-shirt and sweats and eating Dean's burritos, and everything about this scenario is almost (almost, but not) what Dean wishes it was.

"I'm fine," he says. "Some reason I shouldn't be fine?"

"I -- I guess it just wasn't -- how I thought Cass' first time -- you know, a Reaper, it's-- I figure you didn't really think, or, uh, that you might have -- that it might seem weird to you, too."

Dean holds up one finger and says, "Nobody asked your opinion." He holds up a second and says, "Nobody asked _my_ opinion." He holds up three fingers and says, "She wasn't Cass' first."

For a second, Sam's mouth drops open, but then he nods and says, "Oh. Right. I forget he was kinda married for a while there."

"See, if you were as good a friend as I am, you'd know this stuff, too," Dean says. He thumps Sam's chest with his palm and adds, "That show's been off the air for a long time, Sammy. Change the channel."

So he thinks he played that pretty goddamn cool, not that it's so tough to get over on Sam when it comes to cool. Sam gives every damn thing away with his face, and he forgets that some people can bluff.

If he only had Sam to deal with, Dean would be golden, but of course there's Ezekiel, too.

"We're _friends_ ," he tries to tell Ezekiel, who clearly could not give less of a fuck, and Dean hasn't known him all that long, but he's already pretty sure Ezekiel doesn't bluff.

 

"Cass, uh. Can we talk?" Dean closes the library doors behind him as casually as possible, like this is definitely not something he's hiding from Sam until he can think up a good lie about how it all went down.

"Of course," Cass says, helpfully pulling out a chair for him. "Dean, you know there's no one I'd rather talk with."

_You say that now_ , Dean thinks. He sits down on the edge of the table and braces his boot on the chair. "Listen, buddy. You -- can't stay." 

That goes over right about how Dean thought it would, and he has to crank up the volume on the loop inside his head saying _Sammy's life, this is Sam's life, you can't play around with this, you can't take stupid risks, you promised to take care of him, you promised._ He can distract himself, but he can't shut up the other voice in his head, the one reminding him that it's his own string of shitty decisions that's led to this point, to this crushed look in Cass' trusting eyes. "It won't be as bad as last time," he says. "We'll send you with a couple of cards, you're not gonna starve, we'll make sure you get set up somewhere, get on your feet. You can do this, Cass, you're gonna be okay." Even to himself, he sounds like he's babbling.

"I -- take it you're not asking for my input?" Cass manages to say.

"I'm really sorry. I just think...we're all less conspicuous if we spread out a little. Without your powers, you're better off keeping a low profile, and you know me and Sam, we're always a target somehow." It's such a stupid lie; Cass being without powers makes Dean want to keep him close and protect him, not send him off defenseless. But Cass isn't expecting him to lie, so he won't see it when it's right in front of him.

Cass is fidgeting, twisting his fingers anxiously in and around the pockets of Dean's hoodie. Dean wants to grab his hands and make him stop, but he doesn't. "I understand," he says. "I know it might seem -- seem self-serving now to apologize, but I do -- still want to."

"No, don't apologize, that's not what this is about. I wouldn't do something like this to get back at you." Suddenly Dean's brain catches up, and he has to double back to wherever Cass is. "Wait -- apologize for what, now?"

"Well, for -- for what I did to you in Purgatory," Cass says, because hallelujah, the one thing this conversation was missing to make it worse is a dose of Purgatory. "You have every reason to be angry, and I -- always told myself there would be time later to earn back your trust, but -- there wasn't, it seems."

"That's not-- What is it you think you did to me in Purgatory?"

Because, he means -- he can think of a _lot_ of things Cass did to him in Purgatory, and most of them definitely don't call for an apology. Dean kinda wants to send flowers for some of them.

This conversation is going off the rails fast, even for them.

"I told you I'd never abandon you in your need, and then when you -- when you did need something, I leveraged that against you to -- to gain an advantage. I knew it was wrong, even though I-- In my defense, I did think it would be....mutually beneficial."

"That's not--" Dean honestly has no clue where to start. "I don't remember it like that at all, Cass. I remember it pretty much being -- all my idea."

"Yes, but you were weaker than I was, and frightened. I didn't care what happened to me, which is a significant position of power to be in. I should've protected you out of friendship, not asked you to prostitute yourself for my help."

"Wow," Dean says, because _wow_. "That...really isn't how I remember it." Good to know Cass does, though. Jesus.

Fuck Dean, he guesses, for thinking there was something -- romantic about it. The two of them shoulder-to-shoulder against a world of abominations, and every day maybe their last, so every look and every touch had to be hello and maybe goodbye at the same time. A year without any tomorrows, without any expectations, without any need to justify themselves to anyone or understand how they got there or where they were going. The world narrowed down to Cass' skin under his lips and Cass' smile under his skin.

Dean knows it wasn't paradise, or even easy for either of them, but at least he thought they were in it together. Now he's thinking -- maybe they were a whole lot further apart the whole time than Dean ever knew.

"Anyway, I'm -- not mad," he manages to say. "I was never mad about that. And you were right, it was -- mutually...."

He gives it his best shot, but he can't finish that sentence. He can't even think in terms of _advantages_ and _benefits._ Anyone else. Any other time. Not with Cass.

_He remembers one time, leaning over Cass on his elbow, Cass smiling softly up at him while Dean unlaces his scrubs, the way Cass' stomach tightens up to resist ticklishness the minute Dean's lips brush it. Wait, wait, Cass says breathlessly, hiking his leg up so it's up around Dean and Dean can't get his pants down properly. We don't have time to wait, Dean says, already unzipping his own jeans with his free hand, and Cass says, you always say that, I'm tired of hearing that, and Dean says, you being tired of it doesn't make it not true. He remembers Cass' hand in his hair, the way he sighs, his petulant little grumble when Dean lets the wet inside of his lip tease back and forth under the rim of his cockhead, and Dean laughs out loud and says, Would you make up your mind? You complain when I rush, then you complain when I drag it out, you're killing me here, Cass. And Cass smiles and squirms and says, oh, fine, do whatever you want. So Dean does exactly what he wants, and Cass cries out and arches his back, filthy and fucking gorgeous, and says, oh -- oh, whatever you want -- oh, I'm yours._

Mutually beneficial. Jesus.

Maybe he's giving it away on his face a little, maybe this is something Dean just doesn't have the chops to bluff his way through. Cass cocks his head and searches his face carefully, and it just feels like, even with no special powers at all, he knows where Dean's head is at. He smiles a little bit sadly, and Dean waits to hear some version of _you should forget all that, you should leave it in the past where it belongs_.

But Cass surprises him by putting his hand over Dean's hand where it's braced on the table. "You miss it, don't you?" he says huskily. "Purgatory."

Maybe? Maybe. Things were simpler there. Dean was allowed, while he was there, to hate what he hates and love what he loves and take what he wants and never for a second be sorry about any of it. He wouldn't go back, but -- yeah, maybe he misses it.

"How close we were," Cass says, his voice sinking hypnotically lower, and suddenly Dean hears the warning sirens. Something is about to go very badly wrong, and Dean hopes to God he doesn't know what it is. "How we protected each other. I know I have enemies, Dean, but -- I think there's still safety in numbers."

_Sam, Sam, Sam,_ one part of his brain is yelling at him, _you have to do this for Sam, there's no other choice_ , and the other part of his brain is scornfully saying, _you know what he's doing, right, you're not actually stupid? You're not gonna fall for this, are you?_ Seems like everybody's on board, the whole team agrees Dean needs to put a stop to this right the hell now, and yet Dean can't move or breathe or look away from Cass deep, intense eyes. "Yeah, I get that," he finally manages hoarsely, "but--"

"It worked before," Cass says, and he flattens his hand out just a little, pushing his fingertips in between Dean's fingers in a move that should _in no way_ be as nakedly hot as it is. "There's no reason it couldn't work this time, too. I know you're lonely, Dean, and you know I -- I need people I can trust, now more than ever. People I trust the way I trust you."

Reality is a little late to the party, but when it shows up, it shows up with a bang. Dean jerks his hand away and says, "Cass, stop, stop it." He's louder than he means to be, and Cass flinches back automatically from what must sound like anger.

He's not angry, but he is very seriously going to vomit all over this table if Cass out-and-out offers to suck his dick in exchange for a warm bed and a shower, so he needs Cass to stop talking _right this fucking second._

"I'm not here to negotiate with you," Dean says tightly. "I'm telling you, you have to go."

Cass scowls at him, which is actually helpful. "Why are you mad at me?" he demands. "I'm proposing essentially the same deal you offered me."

"It's completely different. It's completely different, Cass."

"But why?"

"It's different because I was a cheap piece of trash long before we ever met, and you were an angel of the Lord!"

And look at them both now, chasing each other in circles down the drain.

_Omnia vincit_ fucking _amor._

Cass stares at him in total confusion. "Dean, you -- you can't believe--"

"You need to get your fucking head clear, Cass," Dean says, shoving off the table, trying to put some distance between them without just turning tail and running. "You need to see me for what-- I'm a disaster, I'm a trainwreck, I've been _bad for you_ all along, and if you'd just opened your damn eyes _once_ instead of only seeing what you wanted to see, maybe you would never have fallen so fucking low."

"Don't tell me what I see," Cass says. "You have no idea. You never did."

Maybe there's a comeback for that and maybe not, but Dean can't stand here another second, so he doesn't say anything at all. He just bails, slamming the library doors between them. He's breathing, but it hurts, his whole body hurts, and he just wants to curl up in a ball with an IV of Everclear jammed into his arm until he blacks out.

He's not even sure who just fucked everything up in there. Probably him, he guesses, but what was he supposed to do?

How was this ever supposed to be okay? Him and Cass -- after all these years of getting it wrong, how did he let himself think for a second that there was some kind of escape hatch? They're just going to keep sinking their teeth into each other and tearing off pieces until one of them bleeds out, and if he ever thought it was going to end some other way, he was living in a fucking fairytale.

When he turns around, he sees Sam's body standing very still, looking at him. "What do you want?" he snarls. He has no idea who he's even talking to. How did it _get_ like this? He's used to things going to shit around him, but this really feels like a whole new level of vicious mindfuck, where he can't even trust the people he cares about most to _stay put in their frigging bodies._

"I -- nothing," Sam says. Sam, definitely. "Are you -- okay? What's going on?"

Dean notices his hands shaking a little and jams them in his pockets. "Cass isn't staying," he says, somehow managing to sound pissed off and freezing cold about it at the same time.

"What?" Sam says. "That's crazy, what do you mean he's not staying?"

"I don't know!" Dean yells. "I don't know what to tell you, he's just not! He's gonna do his own thing, he's going to live his life, he's not our fucking pet, Sam! He's just -- I don't know, he's gonna-- "

"Okay," Sam says quickly, striding in two giant steps over to Dean and grabbing him by the elbow. "Dean -- okay. Hey. You're okay. It's gonna be okay."

Dean nods. He knows what Sam means, and even if it's not literally true, it -- is true. It's always true. They always -- get okay somehow, sooner or later, at least to their everyday standards of okay. "Please just don't -- don't ask me a bunch of questions, Sammy, okay?" he says. "I can't-- I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay," Sam says gently, and makes Dean take the hug that Dean is pretending he didn't reach out for first.

 

Sam handles the logistics. Dean hides. He doesn't know what Sam asks Cass, or what Cass tells him, because as much as Sam can be a pain in the ass, he tends to keep his mouth shut when he knows Dean needs and not just wants him to.

He doesn't even come knock on Dean's door when Cass is leaving. He just sends a text and lets Dean read it or ignore it, lets him make his own call. It's nice of him, and it's actually smart, too, because Dean probably would've dug his heels in if Sam said _You should really come say goodbye to Cass_ , but it's easier to process when he's holed up safe into his own room, holding his phone, looking at **Cass is on his way out** , just a plain fact without any judgments or expectations.

Still, he almost chooses just not to deal with it, just to make a point to -- someone. Himself.

Almost, but not.

Cass is halfway up the stairs when Dean shows up, and he doesn't even see Dean until he makes the top landing and turns toward the door. Something catches the corner of his eye, and he looks down. Dean can see him running the same calculations in his head -- should he say something or not, pretend he doesn't see or pretend that everything's okay?

He turns enough to make eye contact with Dean. His hand grips the bannister loosely, his arm weighed down with one of Sam's old duffel bags. The jacket is Sam's, too, and much too big for Cass. It makes him look smaller than he is.

"Give us a call," Dean says. "You know, when -- when you light somewhere. Let us know you're okay."

"All right," Cass says. "If you want."

"Yeah, of course I--" But it's not really an _of course_ , or at least not from Cass' perspective. Nothing goes without saying at this point, Dean's pretty sure. "Yeah," he says. "That's what I want. You're gonna be okay, Cass, I know you are. And call us if you-- For anything."

It's actually kind of a douchey thing to say, because if he really meant _call us for anything you need_ , Cass could pretty reasonably be like, _actually, I kind of need a place to live_. So "for anything" isn't what Dean means, obviously.

Cass doesn't call him out on it, though. He just nods like that's reasonable and says, "I will."

"Be good out there," Dean says. "Be safe."

"I intend to," Cass says with a game little smile. "But no promises."

Half of Dean had some crazy idea about saying _I love you._ But yeah, _no promises_ makes a lot more sense.

 


	19. Heaven Can't Wait

"Where to?" Dean asks, and Cass has no idea what to say.

Nowhere. He has nowhere to go. He slumps into the seat of the Impala and shakes his head a little, staring at his reflection in the window.

It isn't a new feeling, having nowhere to go. As an angel, he possessed a certain unreflective sense of Heaven as his home, but Heaven wasn't made for angels, and even within it he was -- they all were -- essentially nomadic. He's never had anything like a house, or a base of operations, or even a car whose trunk he could fill with possessions. Moving like a band of light, a spark of intention, he never thought to want any such thing.

He didn't even know you could love a -- a container. A home is just a hollow space to store your body and being, and even for a human, life without one should logically be -- inconvenient. It shouldn't be something to grieve, but every time he realizes he has no such space to store himself, he feels orphaned.

"Cass?" Dean says softly.

"Just -- the Gas'n'Sip," he says. "You can drop me off there."

Dean is silent for a moment, then starts the car.

It takes some time for Cass to notice that they're driving too far, and in the wrong direction as well. They've left the lights of Rexburg's city center (such as it is) behind, and Dean takes a sharp right onto a blacktop access road in such ill repair that it crunches like gravel under the Impala's weight. As the road curls down a hill and to the right, a flickering red motor lodge sign comes into view, impotently advertising its vacancy at an angle that can't be seen from the road.

He knew, of course, that Dean would buy him a bed for the night if he asked. He quite intentionally hasn't asked, but he very much doubts that Dean will take no for an answer, and that's -- fine. The showers here are probably filthy compared to the gym where he normally maintains his hygiene, and the state of the mattresses are not likely to bear thinking about, but it's a kind gesture.

Dean has been so bafflingly, frustratingly kind ever since he got here. His motives and intentions are entirely opaque to Cass, which is not Dean's fault but is irritating none the less. All Cass knows is that Dean is bound and determined to pretend they share an old and uncomplicated friendship.

The appeal of that fantasy is not lost on Cass, but he's not the easy liar that Dean is, and he doesn't know if he can keep up his end all night long.

Dean parks across spaces in the mostly empty lot and leaves the engine idling and the music playing. "Wait right here," he says.

Cass waits obediently while Dean goes into the front office, then while Dean comes back out and unlocks one of the ground floor rooms and disappears inside it. Cass watches the light through the Venetian blinds, and the briefly passing darkness that is Dean moving around the room, blocking the lamplight.

Dean comes out with two bags and tosses them into the backseat ahead of him, then takes his own seat again and reaches for his seatbelt. "Isn't this your motel?" Cass says.

"Not anymore," Dean says in the clipped tone he sometimes uses to suggest Cass not follow up with more questions. Cass doesn't always take that suggestion, but tonight he's feeling drained and incurious.

There's a Marriott in town, and Cass _waits right here_ again while Dean checks them in and returns with a key card. "You really don't have to," Cass says, for form's sake.

"No shit," Dean says, "but obviously I'm gonna." And yes, that was obvious to Cass, too.

Their keys open the same double room; Cass doesn't know if that's due to budgetary concerns (money must be tight if Dean originally opted for the place that Cass doubts was as clean as the Gas'n'Sip stockroom floor) or if it's a more -- sentimental decision. It doesn't have to be one or the other, Cass supposes.

To be human is to be at the mercy of so many conflicting and mutually impossible needs. Cass thought he'd had the experience of being of two minds before this, but it doesn't compare. Without his grace forming a through-line to Cass' melody, he's nothing but noise.

Dean throws his bags side by side between the two beds, as if erecting a symbolic levee between them. "There's a restaurant next door," he says. "I'll pick up food while you're taking a shower, okay? I'll be back in a minute."

"I've eaten and showered already today," Cass says. He did think he had a date, after all.

Not until he sees the disapproval on Dean's face does he remember that one is not normally considered a sufficient number of meals per day. "Just shut up and be my little rescue bird, okay?" he says in that impatient way that Dean always says _okay?_ when he means _because I said so._

"I don't understand that reference," Cass says. But it does sound rather pleasant. He's never been Dean's _my little_ anything, and he probably won't be any good at it. Of course, Dean knows him quite well, and probably isn't expecting him to be.

It feels so good to be _known_ again. The utter silence where angel radio and the ambient thoughts of humanity used to hum with activity in the back of his brain is enough of a burden, but it's thoroughly devastating to be constantly on the run from anyone who might so much as know that Cass is not a human named Steve. It's another of those experiences he never considered a luxury before this: to be seen and spoken to by someone who knows his name.

He showers again, because he can, and because it feels sulky to disobey Dean over such a trivial matter. Unlike at the gym, he feels secure in his privacy here, and he wonders if masturbating would lift his mood a bit; sometimes it has that power, now that he is human. But Cass doesn't care for the fantasies that spring to mind when he touches himself now -- mostly memories of Meg and Daphne and things he never did to them, occasionally spiked with Dean's hands yanking him closer by the hips. Thoughts of Dean unsettle and confuse him now; without the luminous membrane of his grace buffering him from this body, he's enslaved to its chemicals and its genes, and entirely against his will he appears to have become as heterosexual as Jimmy Novak once was. Cass feels that as the keenest possible insult; squandering whatever he once had with Dean was arguably his own fault, but to be robbed of the familiar and treasured desire that has for so long been inextricable from his love -- that feels unwarranted, and he doesn't even have a target for his resentment.

Dean is as good as his word -- of course he is; he's Dean -- and by the time Cass has showered and dried off and dressed again in his underwear and the hotel's robe, Dean has his boots up on one bed with his laptop resting on his legs, and there are three styrofoam containers on the second bed. Cass sits down on that one and opens them one by one: a salmon Caesar salad, tomatoes and mozzarella with a drizzle of oil and vinegar, and warm bread pudding. Cass frowns at all of it, not displeased -- it looks very nice -- but puzzled. He can hardly imagine a meal that reminds him less of Dean's tastes, but then he realizes that Dean has taken care to choose dishes that have no analogue at the Gas'n'Sip.

Not for the first time, Cass thinks it might be possible to suffocate on Dean's sheer _goodness_ \-- his compassion and his generosity and the extraordinary things that bright, shining mind can come up with when Dean sets himself the task of making someone happy.

Could it ever have been like this? Was there a path they could have taken that ended here, with Cass basking for the brief remainder of a human life in the comforting light of Dean's taciturn but tenacious decency? Even hobbled as he is by having all the sharp corners of his yearning bent down and smoothed over, Cass wants to climb astride Dean's lap and feel Dean's arms come around him to hold him steady. It's strange to feel so little lust for Dean, but there is no version of Cass anymore that doesn't take shape around the spine of this longing to be near Dean.

"Thank you," he says.

"No problem," Dean says. "I don't guess I could get you to take any more--"

"No," Cass says. "I still have one of the cards you gave me; I've kept it for an emergency. In another month, I'll have saved enough for all the deposits one needs to rent an apartment. I know I seem -- extremely pathetic at this particular moment--"

"No, Cass, you don't," Dean says.

"--but I am making my way. And I -- appreciate this, all of this, I do. But you know I'm never happy without a purpose, and silly as it may seem, I'm -- good at my job. I earn my pay. Maybe you can't understand why that matters to me--"

"Because I'm a white-trash grifter who's never worked an honest day in his life?" Dean says, his voice riding that treacherous line between amusement and anger.

Cass huffs an impatient sigh. "No, and you know it upsets me when you say things like that."

"Doesn't make it not true," Dean says. "But yeah, yeah, the simple human dignity of honest labor, I hear you."

"Nobody dies," Cass says shortly. "Maybe I'm playing small, but when I clock out at the end of my shift, I'm eighty dollars richer and nobody is dead. At this point in my life, I'll take every small victory I can get."

Dean nods. "Eighty dollars, huh?" It doesn't sound like much. Not long ago, Cass wouldn't have had much frame of reference for the number, but he knows now how it sounds -- how it is. Cass shrugs and digs into his salad.

He doesn't think Dean, clicking around on his computer, is watching him very carefully, but he has no sooner eaten the last bite of his bread pudding than Dean says, "Want me to order a pizza, too?"

"This is plenty," Cass says. "Thank you."

"You can't live on stale taquitos and Slurpees," Dean says. "You look like shit."

"Thank you," Cass repeats dryly, and then he can't resist saying, "That's not what you said earlier."

Dean flashes him a brief smile. "I was trying to build your confidence. You look like you're fifteen pounds underweight and just wintered in Idaho."

Cass rolls his eyes. "I'll take it under advisement, Dr. Winchester." But then he remembers that, in fairness, he has been relying on Dean's knowledge of human health recently, and he says, "I never thanked you for the babysitting advice."

"No problem," Dean says lightly. "I'm a rad babysitter, who cares what Sam has to say about it. I'm sorry it wasn't the date you were hoping for."

"I don't even know if I was hoping for it," Cass admits. "It was just flattering to be asked. Or -- I was flattered when I thought she was asking, anyway. I'm trying to practice humility as an intentional discipline, but it's -- a struggle, sometimes. To feel so consistently...humbled."

"You're too good for this place," Dean says. "You're never going to fit in."

"Nora assures me that I'm very special," he says bitterly. "I assume that's a nicer way of saying the same thing, am I right?"

"Probably," Dean says. "Also, she probably thinks you're gay."

"I don't know why she would," Cass snaps, because this cuts rather closer to the bone than he would prefer. "I'm not."

Dean glances up at him and smiles softly. "Well, you seem it," he says. When Cass opens his mouth, Dean waves him silent and says, "I don't know, you just do. Don't look at me like that, it's not an insult."

"Isn't it?" Cass says. "If I said it to you, wouldn't you take it as one?"

Dean gives him a narrow look, then glares at his screen. "Well, Jesus," he grumbles, "don't be like _me_."

"You're not a grifter," Cass says abruptly. "It's unfair that the world doesn't reward you for the work you do, but you don't cheat and you -- you steal, but you _don't_ , you just -- make the best of a broken world, and you work harder to earn your way than anyone I know, with no map, no directions, and mostly no gratitude. You're _not_ the -- things you say you are, when you take these moods." Dean looks uncomfortable, as he usually does when he's cornered and forced to endure praise, but Cass doesn't really care. If Cass has to learn how to endure humility, Dean should have to learn how to endure pride. "You're someone who is -- always able to man up and turn a bad situation around. You're so good at free will, Dean, and I'm -- not. I'm just not, and I don't think it's entirely my fault, I don't think angels were built to perform in that way. Every time I've tried to wield power, I've fallen to pride and greed and callous disregard of others' lives, and I -- never will understand why you think I'm too good for anything. I never will see what you see in me."

"I think you're more human than you think you are," Dean says, and Cass has no idea if it's a compliment or not. "The thing is, Cass -- you don't really get to choose. You _are_ strong, even like this. You do big things, you make big waves. I know it scares you. I know you feel guilty. But that Rit Zein thing was right: you of all people don't just get to opt into the good parts of free will and opt out of the bad stuff. You choose to live, and things happen. You choose to die, and that -- that makes things happen, too. You choose to hide out in Rexford, Idaho, and things don't stop happening. There's no way for you to make yourself not a player in all this, and believe me, I know what it's like to want to just -- not matter so much anymore, just make choices that only affect you, but guys like you and me, that's just -- not in the cards for us."

"Rexburg," Cass says.

"What?"

"It's Rexburg."

"It's _Idaho_ ," Dean says, and Cass has no idea what he means to convey, but it doesn't seem like a compliment. He sighs and rubs his eyebrows. "Cass, why don't you -- why don't you call in sick tomorrow? We'll keep the room a couple of days; we can catch a movie, go for a drive, check out the pool -- we can do whatever, just -- just hang out. When do we ever get to do that?"

Never. Everything they do matters far too much to leave any room for doing _whatever_. "I can't, Dean," he says softly. "They'd have to call Natasha on her day off, or else Cody would have to work a double shift."

"I honestly don't give a damn about Cody and Natasha," Dean says.

"I do," Cass says, and then because he wants to be honest with Dean, he says, "At least...I want to. These are small things, Dean, but I want to get them right. I need to."

"Is this about the damn bees?" Dean asks.

Cass smiles a little. "Sort of. As a synecdoche for--"

"Nope, I'm sorry I brought it up. God, I forget when you go away what a nerd you are." That seems like a compliment to Cass, and for a moment he's so overwhelmed by it that he's almost frightened.

He doesn't understand this, any of this. After all the harm, all the deception, all the times he used and manipulated and degraded Dean -- no crime, no sin so foul that he hasn't been willing to perform it or at least consider it if he thought it might draw Dean closer to him -- how can Dean treat him with this soft, familial teasing, this painless friendship? Is Cass missing some essential wisdom about the human mind and heart that would -- explain Dean Winchester to him? Or at least make Dean _believable_ , if comprehensible is too much to ask?

Constantly, year after year, his love for Dean grows deeper and more profound, and constantly Dean is a horizon that recedes in front of him. Cass will never know him, never grasp him entirely. Every time Cass manages to grow a little wiser, he sees how much larger Dean was than he ever knew before.

Cass' bed is the one nearest the air conditioning unit, and he's happy that the chill of recycled air makes it unreasonable to take off his robe when he gets under the covers. He feels that he needs the shelter from Dean, or at least that there is something impolitic about baring too much skin under Dean's watchful eye. He has not been invited for that, and he doesn't want to be accused of not understanding his role here.

Dean stays on the computer a little longer, then goes to the bathroom. Cass curls in on himself for warmth and listens to the sound of the shower, which is nearly as soothing as the feeling of being inside one. It's so steady and predictable.

He is looking at the wall and the air conditioner when Dean comes out. He hears Dean's footsteps and the click of the lamp between their beds as Dean turns it to its lowest setting. He make himself into a smaller ball when he feels Dean's weight settle on the edge of his mattress, and Dean touches his shoulder and says, "You're not hurt, are you?"

"No," Cass says. "Cold."

Dean tucks the spare fabric of the comforter around Cass and underneath him, improving his insulation. "Better?" he murmurs, and Cass nods. Dean sighs a little and pats his arm through the cotton batting. "Cass, I'm -- I'm sorry," he says. "I wish I knew how to -- make you less sad. You've been sad ever since -- since I found you in Colorado, and -- I don't know, I guess I never should've pulled you back in."

"I wanted to help," he says. "Sam was my responsibility -- my mess to clean up. The Leviathan, too."

"I guess. Just -- I know it's not fair. I didn't let you go, and Naomi didn't let you go, and God won't let you go, and I just.... I hate that you _want_ to go, but that doesn't make your life mine to-- any of ours to play around with."

"If that's what I wanted, I wouldn't have struggled against the Rit Zein," Cass says. "I want to live."

It's getting easier to say each time. It's -- believable, if not comprehensible.

He wants to live, even if the world is irreparably broken -- even if it's getting worse and not better, with Heaven and Earth further apart than they ever have been, with the mighty Host all rendered useless and half-mad, with God unmoved by the suffering of His faithful, with all of these strange and lonely distances that now exist between Cass and the man he once carried like a burning coal between his heart and his skin.

"I hope that's true," Dean says. "This world's treated you like shit, I know, but -- you've fought for it. Maybe that doesn't make you feel any better; I know you're sick of fighting. But for what it's worth, it means something to me. You showed up to fight when -- when you didn't have to. And I just wish you'd -- thought enough of me to let me fight for us. Because I would've, if you'd given me a chance."

Cass closes his eyes. "I gave you a year," he reminds Dean. Purgatory looms so large over the two of them, always, that neither of them have to invoke it by its name. It's _a year_. It's the year.

"And I didn't let go," Dean says. "You did. You did, Cass. And it's your choice, and I -- won't force you to do anything even if I could, but damn, it's hard sometimes to watch you swan around all pale and tragic, when it was _your choice_. You broke my fucking heart. And I'm not mad at you. I know you had your reasons, and you're a million years old and your universe is a lot bigger than one guy. I never did think I was going to be the only thing that mattered to you. But I -- would have fought, if you'd have let me."

Of all the things Cass has ever doubted, Dean's will to fight has never been on the list. For better or for worse, it's the one thing he was born for: he is a sword and a champion, he is Heaven's best-beloved and the closest thing Earth can produce to the war song of an Archangel. Of course Dean would have fought. He would have fought day and night, with every weapon at his disposal. He would have forced Cass to defeat him or surrender, and neither of those things were ever what Cass wanted.

"You never kissed me," he says.

He more than half expects Dean to be confused, to protest that he doesn't know what Cass means, why it matters, what it has to do with anything. But instead a terrible, breathless stillness falls over the room, and even though Dean is behind him, Cass can feel the gravity of his focus. "Did I fail your test, Cass?" he says, low and a little dangerous.

"No," Cass says. Maybe there were -- days and nights when it felt that way, but in his heart Cass knows it was never so simple. "I knew you were afraid. I don't pretend to know why, but it wasn't mine to know. But your choices were few enough in Purgatory, and I wanted you to have that one. You had your reasons, whatever they were, for choosing as you did."

"Would it have gone down differently?" Dean asks. "If I'd -- chosen the other way, would you have -- chosen me, too?"

"I don't know," Cass says. "Alternate timelines are notoriously chancy and variable. I only know that...loving you is the easiest thing I've ever done, and it's -- not that way for you. It's not temptation and then Fall, not for you. It's an act of bravery, an endless upward climb against gravity, and I hate that it's so hard for you. I hate that you have to fight so hard to come to me. I know that you are a hero and a hero will always find a way to do what has to be done, but the last thing I ever wanted was to be another demand on you. I just wanted -- this one thing to happen without a struggle, and I tried -- as best I knew how, I tried.... But nothing happens without a struggle. Not for us. That's the reality."

"No," Dean says. "No, I -- guess not. I don't know if it's my fault, though. Kinda how humans are built, isn't it?"

So it might be; only God would know for sure. The mechanics of evolution do seem to imply that necessity lies just beneath the surface of most human behaviors, and maybe it was reckless and foolish for Cass to gamble everything on the hope that Dean could ever experience submission to a greater power the way an angel can. Even when the power is love, the very thing humans were made for, maybe the instinct to fight was always bound to be greater.

Dean smooths the comforter snugly around his shoulders and says, "Get some rest."

"I'm sorry I broke your heart," Cass says into the darkness as Dean moves away and switches off the lamp. "It's...one of my many regrets."

"What if we make a deal?" Dean says.

Cass can't help but chuckle. "That always goes well."

Dean ignores him. "What if I try to stop thinking of you as a demand, and you try to stop thinking of me as a regret, and we see what happens?"

"I'm always willing to try," Cass says.

And unbelievably, incomprehensibly, he finds as he says it that it's the truth.

 


	20. Stairway to Heaven

 

Cass sits in the library and listens to Dean berate his brother -- _you were being an infant_ and _I call the shots_ and _this is a dictatorship_ , and he has to admire the tactician in Dean, as always. He may appear to be losing control ("losing his cool," he would probably say), but Cass very much doubts it.

When the Mark of Cain finally devours Dean, his control will be the very last thing to go. In the meantime, Dean is exactly what he always is, only more so.

His suspicions are only confirmed when Dean sits down across from him, displaying almost no trace of the anger he vented only moments ago. "So, your batteries," he says, almost sympathetically.

"I'm fine," Cass says. He learned Good Cop/Bad Cop from Dean, and he recognizes it now, even if Dean is having to be creative in order to play all the roles at once. Dean isn't sympathetic; Dean is sizing him up.

"No, you're not," Dean says. "How long have you got?"

"There's no formula for this. Days. Years. I don't know."

"Closer to days than years, though, right?" Cass shrugs. "Well, hey, you still got us," Dean says. It's a good imitation of Dean's usual rough-edged but warm optimism.

Cass isn't buying it for a moment. "Do I have you?" he says. 'You were very slow to extend me your trust over the bombers. For all I know, you still have your doubts. I just lost my army, Dean; if you were in my place, would you oppose Metatron with nothing but two allies who were still watching you for any sign of a sudden fall into megalomania?"

Dean smiles at him. "If you T-bone another car at an intersection, it takes five years to drop off your insurance record. You want breaking the world in a fit of megalomania to get scrubbed in, what, three years? You know I got a soft spot for you, angel, but that's asking a hell of a lot."

"Exactly my point," Cass says. "Your _soft spot_ doesn't equal your loyalty."

"You did just throw away an army for me, though," Dean says. "That's gotta be worth something."

"It was the right thing to do," Cass says. "You say you're innocent of the charges, and I believe you." He has no intention of being drawn into a conversation about relative worths and values; that way lies more buying and selling of favors, and Cass has yet to feel like he's gotten the better of one of those deals with Dean.

Historically speaking, he's profited more handsomely off of deals with demons.

Dean startles him by reaching out and stroking the inner curve of Cass' hand where it rests on the table with one finger. Startles, but not surprises him; he's been expecting something like this. "You saying it wasn't personal, then?" Dean says. "Just protecting humanity like a good guardian angel?"

"To be honest, Dean, right now I'm not sure whether or not letting you live does protect humanity."

"Because the Mark's turned me into a monster?" Dean says, either amused or eager for Cass to believe he is. "Is that how you see me now -- am I a monster, Cass?'

"No, Dean," he says softly. "I still see a righteous man. But then, there's some reason to doubt that I've ever seen you entirely clearly.'

Dean leans back in his chair and regards Cass curiously. "Your problem is, old dog, new tricks. You gotta start practicing early, if you want to really learn how not to trust the people you love. You, it's probably too late for you.'

"I never said I trusted you," Cass says. "I know what you're capable of, both the ruthlessness and the self-sacrifice. At one time, I trusted my ability to gauge which you'd choose at any given moment."

"Which one is the one that turns you on?" Dean says. "You like the whole Servant-of-Heaven, savior-of-humanity thing, or is it the guy you call when you want a job done that's too dirty for you?"

Cass sighs. A part of him, he supposes, hoped all along that he could get out of this without being drawn into a battle for dominance with Dean, but that was naive. Sam might have been genuinely concerned about mob mentality and the corrupting influence of power, but that was only the excuse Dean used to paper over his discomfort at being confronted with Cass in his capacity as a war commander.

Dean just doesn't care for the competition.

"All of it, Dean," he says lightly. If Dean wants to visibly fluster him, he'll have to work a lot harder at it than that. "Everything about you turns me on, you know that."

Dean grins -- not, Cass thinks, at the compliment, but at the prospect of worthy opposition. Dean doesn't care for competition, but he loves a fight. "Well, now we're talking," he says. "Wasting all this time coming at me all sentimental and shit, I don't know what you were thinking. All you ever had to do was ask me nicely if I'd fuck your brains out and you know I would've."

Cass smiles back at him and says, "But why would I have needed to ask? If I wait long enough, you always offer." Dean's eyes widen very slightly, slightly enough that only someone watching for it would notice. Cass is watching; he knows all of Dean's tells. He rests his forearm on the table and leans forward, dropping his voice just low enough to force Dean to listen a little harder, to lean in almost imperceptibly. "I know you love the idea of me as your ardent admirer, but you have noticed that, haven't you, Dean? That you're always the one who offers, and I accept or decline, as I prefer? I think you have noticed. I think it bothers you."

"You don't want to play this game with me," Dean growls. "I've let you get away with it before, this come-hither-go-away routine, but trust me, things change."

"Don't turn this around on me," Cass says. "Do you really believe I'm so addled by you, after all these years, that I can't see through these ridiculous, transparent attempts to manipulate? You know your brother will always carry the memory of being weaker than you, being dependent on your kindness for his survival, so you use the threat of force to alienate him. You know I carry -- all the memories of you that I carry, so when you want to alienate me, you use sex. You want to fight this fight alone. We won't let you. And sooner or later, when the Mark is gone and you've come to your senses, you'll feel guilty and you'll be afraid to be alone, and you'll offer Sam God knows what to ameliorate his anger, and you'll offer me your body. Dean, I've played so many rounds of this game with you. If you'd prefer honesty for once in your life, that's more than fine with me. No one's stopping you."

Dean watches him across the table for a moment. Cass leans back and lets him watch. Dean is what he always is, only more so, but Cass can admit that their shifting circumstances have made allying with Dean a more difficult than usual needle to thread. No sense rushing their process of coming to equilibrium.

When Dean has reached a certain equilibrium of his own, he smiles reluctantly. "Okay, okay," he says. "You know, sometimes it's kinda hot how you won't take a single second of my shit, and then sometimes it's really annoying."

"I know what you mean," Cass says. "I find some of your unique charms annoying as well, from time to time."

"Yeah, I bet you do," Dean chuckles. "You want a drink?"

Cass makes a vague _whatever you want_ gesture in the air, but the truth is, he could really use one. It's been a taxing day. Dean keeps whiskey and glasses on one of the library shelves -- of course he does -- and he brings both glasses and the bottle over to the table, sets them up and pours them, and lifts his own glass as he sits down for a silent toast. Cass taps his glass to Dean's and drinks half of it at once, but Dean cradles his glass close to his body, fidgeting idly with the shape of its base. "Do you know what today is, Cass?" he asks.

"The date?" Dean nods. "Not really. It's -- June. Mid-June, not the solstice yet. Why?"

"What year?"

Cass tries not to roll his eyes and say _get there faster_. Humans sometimes reveal more through their reluctance than they do in the words they choose, he reminds himself. "2014."

"That's right," Dean says. "It's 2014."

"Okay," Cass finally says, when Dean takes goddamned forever to explain himself. "I'm glad we agree. Would you care to elaborate on that?"

Dean doesn't seem to care to, at least not in what Cass considers a timely manner. He finally takes the first sip of his whiskey while Cass is draining his glass dry. "We changed a lot of details," Dean says as he refills Cass' empty glass. "A hell of a lot. But here we are. You wanna take inventory?" Cass shrugs, even though by now his curiosity is almost overwhelming. "I'm a monster with an almost unstoppable legendary weapon," he says. "I'm fighting a war I intend to win no matter who I have to hurt to get there. You were just abandoned by every angel in Heaven and your grace is on its last legs. They're going to change the locks on you, and you'll just get weaker and weaker. Who knows if they'll even notice by the time you're stuck being human again."

"Well, don't sugar-coat it," Cass grumbles.

"Oh, I ain't even at the sweet part yet," Dean says, topping off the drink Cass hadn't even noticed was almost empty again. "Sam's halfway out the door; he's been sick of my shit for years, he won't last much longer. So here we are, just you and me. We used to fuck, but we don't anymore, and sometimes you think we're friends and sometimes you think it's more just that neither of us has anywhere else to go. You know you should probably get away from me, but you won't do it. Maybe you think you can help me somehow, that I'll be worse off without you. Then probably you give up on that idea, but you still just can't cut yourself off, you don't even know why anymore. I'm not good to you, but I let you call me out when I'd put a bullet in anyone else who tried it, and that's kind of a rush, right? Makes you feel like you're still special. Like you're the one thing left in whatever heart I've still got. But we hurt each other when we get too close, so we both stay just that little bit away from each other -- arm's length, not enough to give either of us our freedom, but enough to let a little scar tissue develop. You figure out ways to keep yourself busy when I'm not calling for you. Maybe you meet a girl. Hell, maybe you meet a lot of girls; it's about time you twigged to just how fuckable you actually are, and it's hard to keep up the brooding when you're hip-deep in pussy. Maybe you figure out how to get and stay just high enough that you can't remember all the reasons that staying close to me is a huge fucking mistake. Because you know it is. You know I don't really need you or want you anymore, that I can't really feel anything anymore. And the truth is, you don't know if you do, either, but by now it's been so much of your life for so long, you can't admit to yourself that it hasn't been love for a long, long time. It's just an addiction. But you'll never see that. You'll go to your goddamn grave, probably on some bullshit mission I cook up, swearing that following me to Hell was worth it because it gave some kind of _meaning_ to your shitty, destructive, fucked-up life. _Omnia vincit amor_ , babe. _Omnia vincit_ fucking _amor_."

Cass doesn't know what game they're playing now, but he thinks Dean is winning it. He feels his hands twisting around nothing, and he looks down at them. There are two glasses on the table between him and Dean, one full and one empty. He can't remember how many he drank, which doesn't matter, it doesn't matter because he knows he can drink Dean under the table, this shouldn't affect his control in the slightest.

He can't blame the whiskey. If he's losing control, there's no one to blame but himself.

"That's -- very vivid," he says. "I didn't know you visualized me as such a tragic character."

"Guess I decided to be _honest for once in my life_ ," Dean says with a hint of a snarl. "You're welcome."

The sound of Sam shouting for their attention from the other room breaks into the white noise inside Cass' head, and the distraction gives him cover for the fact that he can't yet even articulate all the ways he knows he's been outplayed.

 


	21. The Hunter Games

He feels pretty good about himself for not killing those people. Sure, that's a low bar, but it's good to keep your goals attainable. You do that, and you rack up more wins than losses, and that's how you build healthy self-esteem.

Dean does not live by any of that, but it's good advice anyway.

It's a pretty short haul back home, but Dean's not all that eager to get there and have a long talk with his brother and Cass about how torture is wrong (fine) and what kind of leads they have to unfuck Dean's arm and id (none), so he gets off the interstate and takes US-24 instead. It's the more scenic drive, inasmuch as there's scenery in Kansas, and it's -- he doesn't know, nostalgic or something, even though he's not planning to stop in Lawrence, so it has advantages other than just wasting time before the inevitable.

He doesn't drive by himself much anymore. That's by choice, but still, it's nice to get a change of pace sometimes. Sometimes he remembers that other 2014, and the burned husk of his car abandoned outside a hot perimeter, and he's sure he feels about it the same way that normal people feel when they kill a dog in a movie. Like, sure, light the world up, let's see some mayhem, but _not like that, what's wrong with you?_

Even before he was eaten by Hellhounds, Dean never really wanted a dog, but he's got no patience for a dystopia that requires him to be a _pedestrian_. If Mad Max has taught him anything, it's that he's going to need his Baby more than ever in any kind of dark future that's worth the name.

Well, and that blue eyes are sexy as hell, he guesses.

He stops for gas somewhere in Cloud County, and there's a rack of Hostess pies by the cash register, so he does something he hasn't done in -- god, decades -- and buys one cherry, one apple, and one lemon, then dices all three up neatly and tosses them together on the wax wrapper. He sets the whole thing on the hood of the car and takes a picture to send to Sam.

Almost immediately, Sam texts back, **Haha, Candyland Carbomb, really?** Dean smiles at his phone. He hadn't been totally sure Sam would remember those, but obviously he does. **I'm a dangerous man, Sammy** , Dean texts. **I can't be stopped.**

It's funny to him, but Sam will probably make a thing out of it, he realizes after he hits send. Oh, well. Too late now. He sets his phone to silent and puts it away.

The Candyland Carbomb was a post-hunt treat from -- oh, god, the very earliest trips Dean can remember going on, back when he was -- seven, eight, nine. When they were both too young to help, but also too young to be left on their own back home, and every few weekends, Dad would calmly put them in the back of the car and drive somewhere, then set them up in a motel with a bag of groceries and tell them not to open the door to anyone but him. Dean guesses he sort of knew that they were hunting trips, and he sort of knew what that meant -- that sometimes there were Things, not the same as the Thing That Took Mom, but like that, and that his father found them and killed them. He was too young to think about it much; it was just normal life for them, and he mostly cared about making potato chip sandwiches and free HBO and building Lego spaceships with Sammy. Sooner or later Dad would come back -- a few hours later, or the next day sometime, and if Dean had kept the kid from playing in traffic and they hadn't gotten into any fights that required Band-Aids and Bactine (Sam was a biter), then everything was cool. Dad would make them a Candyland Carbomb to split on the way home, and if sometimes his face was a little scratched up, all Dean ever noticed was his warm smile as he said, _Share, now. There you go. You're good kids._

Somewhere around the age of ten, Dad put a SIG Sauer in his hands and said, _You're gonna want to know what to do with this_ , and from that point on Dean's responsibilities no longer began and ended at "don't let your brother jump out the window or eat bleach." There wasn't as much _you're good kids_ after that point, and there was a lot more _tighten it up, Dean, watch what you're doing, get your head screwed on straight, what are you thinking, you wanna get someone killed?_ That's adulthood for you, Dean guesses -- a lot more work for a lot less pie.

It all paid off, though, right? He's gotten plenty of people killed, but hardly ever by accident. If there's one thing Dean isn't, it's careless.

He takes his time eating the first Candyland Carbomb in his life he hasn't had to share. Before he settles back in for the last leg of his drive, he checks his phone and sees a message from Sam. **Cass is talking to Claire,** it says. **He sounds not happy. What did you do?** Dean doesn't bother to answer it.

Even with the forewarning that Cass is probably slightly less than brimming with pride in Dean for that whole not-killing-humans thing, Dean's caught a little off guard when he's barely pulled into the damn garage before Cass is slamming the door from the bunker, stalking toward him in full Avenging Angel mode. Dean takes the keys out of the ignition and rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand, because god knows when Cass makes up his mind to fight, there's gonna be a fight. Normally Dean doesn't mind, and sometimes it's even kind of sexy when Cass gets into full-on Heavenly Fire and Brimstone territory, but he's just -- not feeling it right now.

"You just left her there?" Cass says the minute Dean opens the car door.

So no pleasantries, then. Figures. "What was I supposed to do, put her in the trunk? I'm not exactly on Claire's shortlist of Trusted Adults. It's not my fault she had a soft spot for that scumbag who tried to peddle her ass."

Cass barely backs out of his way enough to let Dean stand up and close the door, and Dean can't figure out -- is he _trying_ to piss Dean off? "Oh, so now you have ethical issues with sex work," Cass says. "This is new information."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck _me_? I asked you to help my daughter, and you abandoned her in the woods with a bunch of violent drifters, that's the opposite of helping!"

"She's not your daughter!"

" _Jimmy's_ daughter. You know what I mean."

Dean's starting to. "You gotta be more specific with me, Cass, because I'm trying to be a good guy here, but I can't read your mind. I don't automatically know which of the lowlifes this kid likes to socialize with you want me to kill, and which ones you don't."

"The ones who try to murder you with a fire-axe, you can kill!"

"Well -- I didn't," Dean snaps. "But I'm kinda thinking about killing you right now, so if you'd like to be supportive of my demon recovery journey, what you could actually do to help is give me _two seconds_ to get into my house before I have to deal with you being a _relentless bitch_ about the favor I just did for you."

"I would've done it myself if I hadn't been busy cleaning up after you," Cass says coldly. "And I don't have two seconds to give you. I'm going to find Claire."

And that's it, that's the thing that makes Dean not even give a fuck about being a good guy anymore. "Great, you do that," he says. "Chase her down, kiss it all better, buy her an ice cream sundae and tuck her into bed. _Don't worry, princess, Daddy's here, everything's okay now._ Jesus, you're pathetic. She's never going to love you like a father, Cass. She _had_ a father. You killed him."

"Everyone has abandoned her," Cass says. "I won't."

"Well, you should!" Dean yells. "Eventually you have to! You can't baby a kid their whole life, you can't just come running in and _save them_. I don't know what kind of Fisher-Price My First Nuclear Family fantasy you're set on, but that's not what fathers do, it's not just trips to the circus and Christmas morning, you're supposed to teach them how to handle the real world! She's seventeen years old, she's old enough to make her own mistakes now."

"And yet at twice her age, you seem to require an infinite amount of hand-holding in order to survive each one of yours," Cass says. Which isn't exactly not true, but it is pretty rich coming from Cass, who mostly _doesn't_ survive his epic fuck-ups.

Guess Daddy always comes along at the last minute to kiss it better, though, doesn't he. Hallelujah.

"Go," Dean growls. "Go do what you're gonna do. Tell her I said hi."

Cass stabs a finger in his direction and warns, "I'm not done with you."

"Yeah, you never are," Dean says.

He's got a lot of mixed feelings about that.

Inside the bunker it's pretty quiet, at least by comparison. "Hey, you alive down here?" Dean calls out as he comes down the stairs, and by the time he's made it to the kitchen, Sam's found his way there, too. "You could've warned me I was about to walk into a Cat 5 hissy-fit," Dean complains from the fridge. He tosses Sam a beer to match his own.

"Told you he wasn't happy," Sam says, sitting down at the table while Dean boosts himself up on the counter. "He's just worried about you, that's all."

"He's got a funny way of showing it."

"Really, the two of you expressing your feelings about each other in confusing, backhanded ways?" Sam says. "That's so weird."

"Okay, that's enough out of you."

"Almost unprecedented."

"Hey, can somebody be on my team, please?" Dean says, only half joking. "I'm the one with the Evil Dead arm over here. A little moral support would be nice."

Sam gives him a smile and says, "Everyone's on your team, Dean. I told you I thought you were strong enough to handle this, and now I think so more than ever. A guy swung an axe at your head and you let him walk away."

"I wanted to kill him," Dean admits.

"So? That's not a crime. You think I don't want to punch Metatron in the face? Of course I _want_ to, he's the most punchable guy I've ever met. It only matters what you choose to do."

"It's not like I was expecting a parade or anything," Dean says. "I just thought -- you know, it'd be nice to get a little credit."

Sam sighs. "I'm not defending Cass. He needs to learn some healthier methods of -- like, everything, pretty much? But all he's ever wanted was to protect you, and he can't. He's scared, and he doesn't really have...anywhere to go with that. I think a lot of this stuff about Claire is really just -- fallout from the other things."

"Great, so I'm actually the princess here," Dean grumbles.

It should've been a nonsense statement from Sam's perspective, so it's a little unsettling how calmly Sam accepts it and responds with, "Of course you are. When were you ever not Cass' princess? You guys are Han and Leia; live with it."

"Wait, hang-- I'm not Han in this scenario?"

Sam looks at him like he's mentally deficient and says, " _Of course_ you're-- are you _new_ around here? Han is a likeable screw-up who barely skates by on good intentions and grand gestures. Leia is a dead-shot, trash-talking badass who bosses him around, takes charge of everything that happens anywhere near her, and likes to pretend she doesn't want to fuck him blind, so who do _you_ think you are?"

"You realize I talked Cass into _defying God,_ right?" Dean says. "That is a definite scoundrel-like influence."

All of a sudden Sam half-frowns at him like he's taking this way more seriously than Dean thought he was up til now. "Dean," he says quietly, "you understand that you were never responsible for Cass-- for anything that happened to Cass, right?"

"Right, but--"

"No," Sam says. "No, not _right, but_. You're just not. You always do this, Dean. You think if anyone you care about is unhappy for any reason, it's because you -- specifically and personally _only you_ \-- failed to fix their problems. Cass didn't Fall because of you. I haven't spent half my life depressed because of you. Dad didn't turn into an abusive alcoholic because of you. Dean, you're the strongest person I know, but you cannot _solve life_ for the people you love. You just can't, and I really wish you'd let yourself off the hook. You're not toxic, or a bad influence, or poison, or whatever you think you are deep down in the part of your brain that can't stop knowing you were supposedly born to defeat evil and create paradise or whatever. You turned down that power, and that's got to mean you're allowed to put down the responsibility, too."

"The lesser-known Reverse Spider-Man," Dean jokes weakly.

Sam smiles briefly to acknowledge the effort, then says, "I know it's hard. You think it's easy for me to outlive my destiny just because it was a crappy destiny? It's not. I have to adjust every day to -- feeling like I don't belong in this world, that I'm not who I'm supposed to be. It's the burden I chose, and I'd choose it again a thousand times, but that doesn't make it not a burden. You're never going to feel totally like you're the person you should be, either, but -- when you feel like that, you just -- you have to listen to the people who -- you have to listen to Cass and me. We see you in ways you can't see yourself. I really just...want you to trust us. Or at least try to."

Dean notices that he's holding onto his forearm, the Mark buzzing under his palm. "I don't want to hurt anybody," he tries to say. It comes out like winter, dry and stripped bare.

"Everybody hurts people," Sam says. "You're human, Dean, it comes with the territory. Let us decide if you're worth getting hurt for."

 _No_ , he wants to say, because _no_ , he knows what they'll choose, the pair of them, these stupid, stubborn altruistic assholes, and he can't protect them, he's never been able to protect them, and that's when he hasn't personally been the worst thing for them, the thing they needed protection _from_.

But he's never been very good at saying _no_ to Sam. Instead he says, "Thanks, Yoda. I'll think about it."

"Luke and you know it," Sam says lazily.

"Figures you're my whiny little brother in every alternate universe," Dean says, trying to make it sound like a complaint, and not like it's probably the only thing that saves him.

 


	22. The Book of the Damned

Charlie is quite easy to like; Cass can understand why Dean lights up so quickly when he talks about her. There is an element to Dean, Cass thinks -- buoyant and earnest in his enthusiasms, delighting in wordplay and silliness -- that the people who love him appreciate but cannot fully share with him; neither Cass nor Sam are light-hearted by nature. That Dean can coax smiles out of both of them is very much to Dean's credit, but it must be a relief for him to connect sometimes to a person who can meet and match this side of him so easily.

Over dinner, Cass toys with the idea of being jealous, because certainly Charlie's power to make Dean laugh so hard he doubles over the table, hardly able to pause long enough to chew his food, is a power Cass will never have over Dean's emotions.

But it's so guileless, so natural to Charlie, that he can't do it. She generously includes Cass in her torrent of clever, playful stories and jokes, and no one, including Cass, seems to mind that he only understands a third of it at best. And Dean fairly glows with easy happiness, sitting at his own table surrounded by those he counts as his own people, forgetting for an hour or two that his future has once again become something he must dread.

Even if Charlie were not easy to like for her own sake, she would be impossible not to love when she is such a great force for good in Dean's life. Instead of indulging in selfish envy, Cass adds her quietly to his personal store of greatly cherished beautiful things that exist only on Earth. Metatron might wax poetic about waffles and pop songs, but Cass has found that he doesn't have to be human to take the full measure of joy from these small pollinators, the workhorses who create this world of honey and flowers and temporary hours of peace.

As the hours go by, however, and the alcohol flows freely, Cass feels the shift in energy, the transition from gentle indulgence into something like decadence. Some of Dean's laughter has always been earnest and heartfelt, but much of it has also been a weapon against despair, and Cass thinks Charlie shares this, too, with him. Sam leaves on an undisclosed errand of his own, and Cass finds himself taking refuge in the kitchen, fiddling with the small amount of dirty dishes. They don't intentionally exclude him, but as the speed and fever pitch of their giddy playfulness increases, he can no longer find room inside it at all for himself.

He's still pleased that Dean is happy, but this is not the kind of happiness that Cass understands, and he finds it exhausting instead of restorative as he did before. He should have offered to go with Sam, who takes his time and weighs his words in a way that Cass finds rewarding in a conversational partner. It took him some years to connect to the Sam Winchester that lay buried for so long under the weight of Lucifer, but Cass thinks that in some ways their friendship is now the most solid and reliable he has, not subject to the sudden shifts of passion that erupt in shockwaves under his and Dean's feet so frequently.

He chooses the wrong moment to venture out of the kitchen again, and is immediately confronted by breathy, high-pitched noises that, as an observer for many thousands of years of human behavior, he has long been able to recognize, however innocent his friends think he was before they took him under their wings. Charlie is sitting at the best research computer in the bunker, Dean leaning over her shoulder with his hands braced on the back of her chair, and there is a strict rule against what they are currently doing, both for anti-virus and public decency reasons. Dean would never try to sneak it by if Sam were here.

"You know, I've fucked her," Dean says, trying a little too hard to seem casual about it.

Charlie makes a crow-like caw and punches backwards at him. "You're a _filthy liar_ ," she says delightedly.

"My hand to God, kid. Her real name's Suzy, she's a Born-Againer in South Dakota now, out Jody's way. We met on a case--"

"Sam says that isn't good for the communal computers," Cass says. He doesn't think he carries off a casual tone the way he was hoping for, either.

Dean glances over at him, and there's something dark and a little suspicious in his eyes, but he only scoffs and says, "Sam ain't my mom. Come here, pull up a chair."

"I remember you saying there was an immutable ethical law against public pornography," Cass says.

Dean gives him a lopsided smile. "I remember saying a lot of things. You ignore most of them, why stop now? Come on, Dudley Do-Right. God's not gonna smite you over a little girl-on-girl."

It's such an inane objection that Cass is offended to be accused of it, but he's certainly not going to argue with Dean in front of company. "I promise your computers are safe with me," Charlie says, and pets the side of the monitor comfortingly to demonstrate. "I'm a benevolent goddess."

"Thank you for the invitation, but no," Cass says, and shuts himself in the library. He thinks about texting Sam, who will certainly sympathize with his plight, but he knows it will be construed as "ratting Dean out," so he opts to avoid the appearance of disloyalty and distracts himself instead with the volume of Sholem Aleichem stories he's been working through in fits and starts for weeks.

He's nearly to the end of it when crashing and clattering sounds from the other side of the door send him bolting out, but there's nothing to fight, only a downed chair and several empty bottles sacrificed to Dean's drunken attempts to heft an even drunker Charlie toward her room. "Stop it," Cass says. "One of you is going to injure the other."

Charlie makes a startled chirping sound when Cass picks her up, but she immediately puts her arm around Cass' neck and sticks her tongue out at Dean. "See? Gentleman," she says.

"Oh, yeah, he's a frigging prince," Dean says dryly. "You're a lightweight, and a disgrace to your people."

"Goodnight, handmaiden!" she says cheerfully.

Her traveling bags were dropped randomly in the war room when she arrived and Cass doesn't know if any of the spare rooms in particular are customarily Charlie's, but he chooses the closest one and she doesn't object. He helps her remove her shoes and socks, and from the safety of a sitting position she seems to have no trouble getting out of her jeans and over-shirt, but after some perplexing contortions with her hands behind her back, she looks somberly at him and says, "I have a heroic mission for you."

"I have mixed success with those," he admits.

"I need you to unhook my bra without being weird or freaking out."

"Oh, that I can do," he assures her. "I never make it weird." Not being drunk himself, it's easy for him to reach around her and push her t-shirt up enough to complete his mission. She works her bra the rest of the way off easily, pulls it free from the arm of her t-shirt, and tosses it aside before collapsing on her back. Cass gets the bedclothes loose from underneath her and spreads them over her, then stacks the second pillow under her head. "Comfortable?" he says.

She nods. "I really like you."

"Thank you," he says. "I like you, too."

"I like you as a human being--"

"I'm really not," he reminds her, "but all right."

"--and I like you for Dean."

He should probably read those Edlund books; he has no idea how detailed they actually are. "I'm...really not that, either," he says.

"Pfft," Charlie says. "Red hair, don't care. I ship it."

"Thank you," he says again, although he's not at all sure that's the appropriate response. "I'll see that you have water and aspirin; I want you to ingest both when you wake up."

She smiles sweetly at him, already drifting to sleep. She really is very likeable.

Dean is in the hallway, which should not be suspicious behavior; he lives here. But he's a bit _too_ right there when Cass comes out of Charlie's room, closing the door behind them, and it raises Cass' hackles.

His sense of danger is justified almost immediately, as Dean takes him by the shoulders and leans him up against the wall. He curls his fist around Cass' tie just below the knot and says, "You gonna tuck me in, too?"

Cass wishes he knew exactly what combination of Dean and whiskey and the Mark of Cain he's dealing with, here. It might influence his survival strategy. "You're a little heavier than Charlie," he says, deciding to err for now on the side of pretending to be light-hearted by nature.

"Bullshit," Dean says. "I can feel you running like a generator. You're strong again. You could put me in bed -- hell, you could pick us both up and zap us halfway around the world." He leans in and tilts down so he's murmuring just below Cass' ear instead of just above it or directly in; Cass thinks it's a variation on a submissive gesture. Dean only demands when he's angry; he pleads when he isn't, with his body though not with words. "We could be fucking on a beach in Tahiti in five minutes if that's what you wanted. God, I want to see a beach before I die."

Cass swallows. "We...could. But we don't."

"Anymore, yeah," Dean says. "But we used to."

"I guess," Cass says, already losing his voice as the heat flows from Dean's solid body into his at every point where they touch. It's all he can think of to say. He's not even sure what he just said.

"You guess, huh?" Dean chuckles. "You vaguely remember that? You remember how much you liked it, though, don't you?"

"Dean -- Sam's just down the hall, you don't want--" He doesn't even know if it's true or not, but probably by now.

Dean snorts and begins to unbutton Cass' pants. "Sam's walked in on weirder."

"Dean, you're drunk." There's no question about that; whatever the exact ratio, whiskey is certainly holding its own against both Dean and the Mark of Cain. He reeks of it, the scent just at the razor edge between pleasant and sour.

"I'm celebrating," Dean says shortly.

"Are you?"

"Well, why not? Might as well throw a party, cause angel, this is good as things ever get. I'm not dying old and fat and cranky, that ain't ever been an option. But I'm not dead right now, so let's pop the fucking cork and call it a good time."

He presses his hand downward into the open fly of Cass' pants, and his cock, with whom Cass thought he had worked out a gentleman's agreement, promptly breaks the contract and surges to life under Dean's fingers. Dean grins at him, and he loses all hope of responding to any of this with cool composure. His hands scrabble against the wall; there's some thought in his head that he could push himself forward, push Dean away, but his legs decline to do their part, so he's left just stammering, "No -- Dean, no."

"Is that what you really mean?" Dean says. "No?" Dean leans down further and lets his nose and mouth nuzzle along the side of Cass' neck. Cass' vision swims until he closes his eyes to prevent dizziness, but he can't block out Dean's gorgeous, growling voice. "If you liked what we did in Purgatory, you can't even imagine what it'd be like this time. A locked door -- both of us naked -- a real bed and all the time in the world. Does having your grace back mean you can get it up again and again? I bet it does, right? That's basically just healing yourself. Good. I want to suck you while I show you what lube is for, and I don't want you to worry about holding back. I already know you'll come in my mouth. I love that, I want you to. And it'll feel even better with my fingers in you. It'll be the best thing that's ever happened to you, and then when I get my cock all the way into you -- ah, Cass, it's gonna blow the curve. It's gonna feel like nothing else, nothing you've ever tried. I'll make you lose your damn mind. My name'll be the only word you know by the time I'm through with you."

Even with his eyes closed, the hallway is still spinning around him. He thinks Dean might be the only thing holding him on his feet at this point. "Dean..."

"Yeah," Dean snarls in his ear. "Yeah, say it again."

Cass opens his eyes and takes a breath that he hopes doesn't sound as much like a desperate gasp as it feels. "And what--" He licks his lips and tries again, though it's really his throat that's gone dry, a dryness that runs deep down into the core of him. "And then what?"

Dean frowns. "Then -- what?"

"After you're through with me. Then what?"

Dean rolls his eyes and pushes just a little further away. "Seriously, Cass? Come on."

Even having expected an answer in that general vein, Cass feels a lurch of disappointment. It's stupid to get what you expect and then feel disappointed, but he does. "Listen to me, Dean. For once in your life, please just _listen_. I don't want this."

"I'm so sick of us both lying," Dean says. "How many years are we gonna do this? Are we going for a cool decade, or what? Does whichever one of us keeps up the bullshit longest win some kind of trophy or something? What's the fucking point? Just -- I'm so _sick_ of it. We're into each other, I don't want to die alone, you're my best friend, we did this for a year already and the world didn't come to an end -- I don't even understand why this is so damn hard anymore."

"I'm not lying. Listen to me! I wouldn't lie to you. I don't want this. I don't want to sleep with your loneliness or your alcohol problem or the Mark of Cain. I don't want you because it's the last night of the world or because you threw a party and forgot to invite anyone else except your brother and a lesbian, I don't want one more damnable bargain. I. Don't. Want. This, Dean, do you understand that, is that clear enough? I want you. Only and always you. Don't waste my time with how amazing tonight will be when you don't have a word to say about the morning, or tomorrow night, or the night after that. I don't doubt your...prowess, but I don't need your stupid orgasm. What I need from you is loyalty." He hesitates a moment, because that's a strong note to end on, but he promised the truth, he's always tried to give Dean the truth as best he could manage it, and the truth is he doesn't feel strong at all, so he says, " _I_ _'ll get hurt_ if we do this. And a friend wouldn't ask me to."

Dean steps away, and that should be a victory, but when Cass looks into his eyes it doesn't seem like they're anywhere close to one of those on either side. "It's _never enough_ for you," Dean grinds out, and Cass instinctively crosses his arms around himself for some semblance of protection from Dean's cold anger. "You say you want me, but you only want -- you want everything on your terms, only if it's all perfect. Well, I'm not perfect, I'm never going to be perfect! But this is -- hard for me, it's so hard for me, and -- when I try to take a step toward you, suddenly you always turn into this, this -- plaster angel statue, standing there judging me. You say you love me out of one side of your mouth, but then out of the other side you always say you need more, you need more than what I've got to give you, so how is that love, Cass? It sure as hell doesn't feel like love to me, you just standing there telling me you're too good for this -- you're too good for me like this. Aren't we supposed to be meeting in the middle or something, isn't that how this works? You want me to give you more and more, so what are you giving up for us?"

It's the strangest feeling. The hallway seems to drop away, and he feels alone; he can see and hear Dean, but he feels like he's been ejected from the Earth plane entirely. He can feel sadness and, even more than that, anger, but they prickle along his skin without penetrating it. Nothing seems to touch the numb core of exhaustion, the leaden sense that there is _no end to this_. That he's wasting the only part of his long life that could ever truly matter, having the same fight again and again with someone he's almost too far away to see.

"I don't know, Dean," he says, with the eerie calm of painkillers and old grief. "What about my life, my honor, my faith, my reputation? What about my immortality and my salvation, what about my pride, my grace, my home? I don't know what you want from me. I never knew what you wanted from me, but -- none of that seems to matter, and I don't know what else I have to offer. What am I willing to give for us? Dean, I have given everything, _everything_ , and not for the promise but only the chance of this, for the _hope_ of us. You stand there and look me in the eye and ask me for assurances, ask me to prove myself, and -- how dare you, how dare you say this to me? I've held back nothing, and I've demanded nothing from you in return, not so much as a single kiss. So I don't know, Dean, I really don't. Do _all the work_ or do nothing. Do as you like, it's your choice to make. But don't put your fucking hands on me again when all you intend to do is feed me scraps. I'm as imperfect as you are, but I _am_ too good for this. You're capable of more, and I'm sorry it's hard for you, but more is what I expect. Come back with more, or leave me alone."

He doesn't know if any of it means anything, if anything he says matters anymore, but it's honest, and at least it gives him time to put his clothes back together and make a dignified retreat. Some days, that's the best he can reasonably hope for. He even straightens his tie, mostly for the psychological boost. It always helps him feel like himself.

"Wait," Dean says to his back, and his voice sounds like old gears grinding back to life after years of disuse. "Wait -- Cass, don't go." Cass pauses, knowing -- that he shouldn't, that it's not a good idea, unable to think what good could come of it. He looks back over his shoulder, and Dean looks -- sad or angry or numb, his fists clenched by his sides. "Don't leave me," he grits out.

It's the answer, Cass thinks, to all these years of _what do you want from me?_ Whether or not it's an adequate answer, Cass thinks it's the truthful one.

He's not far from Dean. He's felt it, so many times, but the truth is, they've rarely been very far from one another since Cass was given over into his hands for a mission that was a lie and a mutual destruction that was supposed to be assured. He'll never understand how Heaven could have relied so totally on obedience and been so ignorant about love; he'll never wholly forgive them, nor they him, he anticipates. He may never be sure if this weakness of the heart that he has allowed to control his actions so thoroughly has ultimately been Creation's gain or loss. He has so many more questions than answers now, but he's closer to Dean than he thinks he's ever been before.

It's not an answer, but it's still the truth.

Cass extends his hand. Dean looks down at it, then up at Cass' face, uncertain. Cass gives him a little nod of encouragement, and Dean puts his hand out, too. "Where are we going?" Dean asks, but only once Cass has hold of him.

"I'm tucking you in," Cass says. "As per your request."

The process is very like before -- boots and socks, then jeans and shirt. Cass lets his fingers glide gently over the Mark of Cain and notices how Dean's eyes drop down, how he looks ashamed. Cass kisses the inside of his wrist lightly and urges him into bed under the blankets. "I'll see that you have water and aspirin," Cass says. "I want you to ingest both when you wake up."

"You won't be here?" Dean says.

Cass smiles a little and says, "You don't like it when I watch you sleep. You think it's creepy."

"Because it's objectively creepy," Dean says with a faint smile of his own. "But -- I dunno, you've always been a little creepy. I'm used to it."

"I think it's better if I go." Dean frowns and looks as if he's going to answer, so Cass says with crisp precision, "Consider this meeting you halfway." Dean winces a little at that and nods. Cass strokes over Dean's eyebrow and says, "It will get easier, Dean."

"You think so?"

He has no idea, but he's gone to far greater lengths than this for the hope of it, so why cling to rationality now? "I do," he says. "I have to believe...if you're faithful to love, it's there to protect you when you need it. It has been for me."

"It has?" Dean says, bemused. "Because from where I'm standing, it kinda seems like -- you get hurt a lot."

Cass shrugs. "I'm still here, though."

There's certainly no rational explanation for that, as far as Cass can see. He'd chalk it up to a miracle, but he doesn't much care for those. He'd rather believe love rewards his foolish persistence with its own strange and serendipitous loyalty.

 

 


	23. Baby

"One-night wonders, man," Dean sighs, and it's probably as close as he's come to praying in years.

Or, you know, scratch that thought. Because Dean's pretty sure he knows what gift-from-God looks like in his case, and he's unfortunately very sure what Hell thinks he oughta be getting up to in his spare time, and the awesomeness of girls like Heather and Piper is, they ain't _any_ of that. Dean always appreciates meeting someone who doesn't have a plan for Dean and/or his immortal soul.

That's the reason Earth is Dean's favorite world. Most people from around here don't give a rat's ass what Dean does for the rest of his life.

"Shoot, we're lucky we still get that at all," he adds. Not that he's getting old. Not that he's feeling that last night of no sleep in ways that he never used to. Not that he's catching himself wondering things like _but should I have a plan, though?_ when he never thought that stuff would matter.

Dean knows he's still on track to die young. He just had a different view of what "young" looked like, when he was...young.

"Really?" Sam asks, giving him a sidelong look. "You don't...ever want something more?"

"Aw, come on, Sammy, I dunno," he sighs. "It's not like we haven't both tried. We're batting a whopping zero in the relationship department, goose eggs. At some point you've gotta consider, maybe it's not about what we want. How many hunters do you know who make it work long-term, you know? It's not something that really fits into the life."

"Okay, not -- traditional marriage or whatever," Sam admits. "Not the picket fence life, but -- there's gotta be -- someone who'd understand. Another hunter, or -- someone who's got what it takes to share what we do."

Dean rolls his eyes and says, "You ain't subtle."

"I'm not trying that hard," Sam says.

"If you think the reason it hasn't-- the reason I'm still single is that you haven't nagged hard enough about getting me married off, I got news for you. That don't even make the list."

Sam smiles at him and throws a balled-up granola bar wrapper at his shoulder. "I don't _nag_ you at all. Jerk."

"You do know that if you want better furniture in the bunker, I don't actually have to get gay-married, right? They changed that law, you're allowed to go antiquing yourself now."

"I mean, Shaker style would really suit the place," Sam says. God knows whether or not he's joking. "But no, trust me, I know the reason you're single is your personality."

"You're hilarious," Dean says, and gives him the finger.

"Oh, I'm deathly serious. You haven't exactly been easy to be around for the last two years, you know."

He knows, but he would think it was common courtesy for people to be like, _oh, no, no, Dean, you were fine, we all barely noticed the pure evil flowing through your veins._ "Well, don't sugar-coat it," he grumbles. "Tell me how you feel."

"Uh, I feel like it's been two years where on your best days, you were you on your worst day."

Okay, no sugar there. "And how were my worst days, then?"

"Picture a scale starting at _God, what a douchebag_ and running all the way up to _unhinged sociopath_."

"Now, give me credit. I hit _literal fiend from Hell_ a couple of times."

"Dean, I've known literal fiends from Hell who were more fun to hang out with than you for the past two years."

"But enough about your love life..." Dean says, and immediately wishes he hadn't. His house contains a lot more glass than it used to back when he felt free to twist the knife over Sam's dubious demon connections.

But either Sam hasn't ever put two-and-two together and realized that, or he just doesn't notice Dean's knife-twisting enough to care anymore. "I'm just saying, you act like we're cursed or something, and we're only _sometimes_ cursed. You're better now. Things are better. So maybe you have options you didn't reasonably have before this."

"Tell me something, Sammy, is this a paying gig, being Cass' hype-man? Like, do you file taxes as an employee, or is this kind of a charity work type of thing?"

"Yeah," Sam says with a bark of laughter, "because I pay _taxes_. I'm not -- building a case on behalf of -- any one specific person." Dean makes an incredulous noise, and Sam shrugs. "I'm just saying...that if a person in your situation...does happen to know a person who is always there, no matter how crazy or miserable or dangerous your life can be, and no matter how deeply, deeply unrewarding you can sometimes make it to put effort into being there for you -- which by the way I speak of from personal experience -- if you have someone who's seen all of that, knows all of that, and _loves_ you? I just don't know if that's a person who-- if you ask whether they fit into your life. I think you probably build your life around a person like that. But if that doesn't sound like anyone you know, then sure. You're probably better off doing what you've always done."

That last bit, Dean thinks, was especially ruthless. He doesn't know why people always think Sam is the nice one.

 

Somewhere in northern Utah, Dean says, "Tell me the truth, Sammy. Be completely honest. Can you really -- see us together? _Together_ together?"

"Can't you?" Sam says.

And -- the thing is -- maybe sometimes. But he can also see...neither of them ever changing, or ever giving an inch, and it's all fine and dandy to say _you're better, things are better_ , but the two of them fight like a bag full of wet cats and they -- hurt each other all the time, on purpose or not, and Dean doesn't know if he can see that ever changing.

Dean and Cass are a match made in Heaven, and Dean is all the way beyond cynical about counting on Heaven for anything like happiness.

"I asked you first," he says.

"Being completely honest..." Sam says, choosing his words cautiously, "it gets hard sometimes to see you apart. Just speaking as someone who cares about both of you.... Sometimes it's hard to watch."

 

They've just hit Nebraska, eastbound, when Dean feels the exhaustion kick in brutally hard, and he can barely even find the lines on the road. He pulls over and digs his shaving kit out of the backseat. "I could take a turn," Sam says groggily.

"The alignment is jacked," Dean says. "I've never even heard some of these engine noises. I honestly don't think you can wrangle her all the way home, Sammy, no offense." He's not even sure he can, but he knows he can't push her to make these last two hundred miles while he kicks back and naps in the backseat. They do this together or not at all.

He hasn't bothered to collect loose meds for a while now, and his green bottle is looking pretty low, but he takes a pill and paces outside around the car for a few minutes to get his blood moving again. He checks the weather on his phone, and then while he's got it out, he somehow decides it's a good idea to text Cass, **You up, buddy?**

 **I don't sleep** , Cass texts back right away. **What do you need?**

And that's why it wasn't a good idea, because -- he doesn't really need anything. **Just checking up** , he types out, but then he deletes that. He types out, **Just thinking about you** , then deletes that, too. He doesn't know if it's allowed, or if it's -- weird, or what. They're friends, but he doesn't know if that's a thing friends say or not. Probably not.

 **What's shaker style?** he texts.

There's a pause, and then Cass replies, **In furniture, an early American design philosophy emphasizing minimalism, natural materials, overall aesthetic harmony & balance in place of ornamentation. Thought to be more modest, thus more pleasing to God. Why?**

 **No reason** , Dean sends. **Thanks.**

 **I miss you** , he types out, then deletes it.

He's not sure the engine will turn over one more time, but it does. "Oh, I love you," Dean sighs, stroking the steering wheel. "Baby, we're so close. We're almost there, we'll get home together, okay? You and me."

 

Dean does get her home -- gets all three of them home. She's taken a hell of a beating, but he's brought her back from worse.

He covers her with a tarp in the garage like a sleepy parakeet, his brain buzzing loudly with uppers and a list of parts he's going to need. His hands are almost too jittery to type the list into his phone; for the first time, he secretly wishes he'd gotten that talk-to-text app that Sam likes that he always thought seemed so douchey. He remembers there's some chalk in the glove compartment for sigils-on-the-fly, and he writes his shopping list in big, sprawling letters on the concrete wall. That's better. He likes that system better, actually, than punching everything in with little chipmunk fingers.

There's so much work to be done, but he doesn't hate that idea.

It's 2015 and you can lay a lot of shit at Dean's feet, but his car is still roadworthy, and that's because of him. He hung on, he wouldn't let her go, and she comes through for him even after everything he asks her to do.

It's 2015, and his car is roadworthy, his brother is his brother, and his angel is a giant dork and sober as a nun. And yeah, there's a story in there about all the beatings they've all taken for his sake, but there's another story, too, where this is his home, and they're all here with him right now. About how they were loyal, and so was he, and what's that thing Cass said once? That if you're faithful, love -- loves you back, or something, and it sounds like Sunday School bullshit, but -- here they all are.

Here they are. There's so much work to be done, but Dean's a hell of a mechanic, he can work miracles with a pile of steel and a spark, and if he wants to build his life here, he can, if he wants to build his life around this version of faith, he can.

Since when has he ever been afraid to work hard?

 

He takes a long shower and makes a batch of ground beef for tacos, eats dinner (he guesses it's dinner -- it's afternoon, but Dean's been 24 hours on the road without a real meal, so it's whatever you call that) and downs a 32-ounce Cool Blue Gatorade ("It _does_ taste blue," Cass decided, pleasantly surprised), because he knows his eyes are a little bloodshot and he's probably going to have to defend his sober bona fides. He is sober, but he could probably stand to look the part a little better.

He's not stalling; he's hydrating.

After dinner he brushes his teeth and pushes open the slightly cracked door to Sam's room, where Cass is still set up with the tv. Cass smiles when he sees him, and his eyes go right to the cuts and bruises on Dean's face, but he doesn't say a word about them. He doesn't say a word at all, but he moves to the side a little when Dean comes to the bed and sits up against the wall by his side.

"Sam told me your car is unwell," Cass says. "I'm sorry to hear it."

And the thing about Cass is that he means it; he's offering condolences the same way he would about a pet or a child. He's so damn sweet, and he knows Dean so damn well. "She'll be okay," Dean says. "Just needs a little TLC."

"I don't know that reference," Cass says.

"It's not a reference, it just -- it's tender loving care. That's what it stands for." Cass nods. "So -- uh, how's the marathon coming along?"

"Well, I think. It's not what I imagined it would be. I like the protagonist: she's noble and proud, but her pride and her occasional naivete seem to complicate matters for her."

Dean watches the screen for a minute, but it's full of people, and he can't pick out who he's supposed to be rooting for. "Think she'll get it together?" he asks.

"Probably not."

"Aw, Cass," he says, startled. "We can't _all_ be miserable cynics around here."

Cass smiles fleetingly. "I'm just trying to honestly assess her chances. She's in love with someone highly unsuitable. Handsome, but roguish and unreliable. It has the makings of a tragedy, I fear."

"Yup, she sounds screwed," Dean says. He picks up the remote and turns the tv off. "I promised Sam I'd let you fix me up."

Cass nods and turns toward him. He touches Dean's forehead and sends a few scattered sparks of warmth chasing each other across Dean's scalp and down his face. When he tries to pull his hand away, Dean catches it and rubs his thumb up the center of Cass' palm. "Dean--" Cass begins.

Dean hushes him with fingers on his lips and draws him down to his back. He strokes up Cass' side, through the bulky sweatshirt that he's been wearing since this last curse sucked him so dry he's barely been able to keep himself warm. He leans down so their noses are almost touching and says, "I know, I know what you're going to say, I know you think I-- but it's not, it's not like that."

Cass grips Dean's shirt, his eyes blown wide, and that seems like a good sign, but he says, "Please -- Dean, I can't."

"No, I know you said -- but--" He can't resist stroking his thumb over Cass' cheek, even though he knows it doesn't really help his case, it only makes him look like he's trying to mess with Cass' head even more. "I know I haven't always been what you need me to be, but if you could -- give me one more chance, things could...." Christ, it's all awful, just the worst dirtbag stereotype, the fuck-up who's always, always going to change, _baby, I swear_. He can't believe he came in here with nothing but this, what the hell was he thinking? "It would really be different this time," he finishes lamely.

Thank God Cass is a little bit of a dirtbag stereotype, too, because Dean can see in his eyes that he's just ridiculously close to believing this line. Cass puts his hand on the side of Dean's head, fingers ruffling over his temple and then tracing down behind his ear, and he says, "And -- when you're through with me?"

"I won't be," Dean says. "I want to -- I want to be with you. I don't know -- exactly how that works or what it's going to look like or even -- for sure if I can pull it off, but. I know I want you in my life, and I know that's not going to go away tomorrow. I've wanted it for -- a long time, I just...."

"How long?"

It's a question Dean has asked himself before, and then decided not to dig into. What's the point, right? The past is what it is and it can't be changed. But hell, if this is the biggest ask Cass has for him, he's going to get off real damn light. So he takes a minute and he digs, finding the place right behind his lower ribs where wishing he could pull Cass close and hang onto him lives, trying to remember the first time he felt it ache. "I guess -- when you showed up to drag me back to Bobby's after I tried running to Michael?"

Cass' eyes widen. "When I _hit_ you?"

"Well, that wasn't the charming part," Dean says wryly. "Man, if that was my kink, I'd be the biggest slut on the planet. No, I just -- that's when I worked out that you were some kind of bait on Heaven's hook, and I just remember -- how mad I was, and how -- how much it hurt, because I wanted it to be real. I wanted you to just...like me for no reason."

"I always had reasons," Cass says. "So many reasons." He tugs on Dean's arms, pulling Dean further on top of him. Dean works his hand under the sweatshirt, pressing it up his side and feeling Cass' body roll up to meet him, both of them getting short of breath. He hopes that answers all of Cass' time-sensitive questions, because he doesn't know how much talking he has left in him at this rate.

Cass frames Dean's face with his hands, brings his forehead down against Cass', and now Dean can feel the heat of Cass' stuttering breath. Dean moves just a little, nudging their noses together, and murmurs, "Can I? I -- I want you to feel good about it, I don't want you to be wondering if you can -- if you can trust me, if I'm just a big fucking mistake for you--"

"Yes," Cass gasps. "Yes, I feel good, please, Dean, please kiss--"

He puts his lips against Cass'. Maybe it's the amphetamines, but he can feel his heart rattling like a pinball through his whole body, and his fingers dig into the blankets, hanging on hard to slow down his trembling. They rest like that for a few endless seconds, until finally Cass makes the sweetest little mewling noise Dean's ever heard and leans up into it, shifting his mouth to a better angle and nuzzling Dean's lips apart with the tip of his tongue. Dean gets a hand under Cass' head and manages to kiss back, and then they're off to the races.

God, it's unbelievable. Dean swears Cass is cheating, using magic or something, because this concrete room underground is suddenly Tahiti, he's sweating under the sun, and Cass surges up against him with the relentless power of a tidal wave. "Cass, oh, fuck, Cass," Dean can hear himself saying against Cass' mouth, against his jaw. He uses his palms to push Cass' head back so he can kiss hard up Cass' neck, Cass' knees and thighs around his hips urging him to keep going upward, to come on back toward Cass' mouth where he belongs.

"Dean, Dean," Cass is gasping, and that sounds so damn good that he doesn't realize at first that the reason he can't reach Cass' mouth anymore is that Cass' hand is planted on his sternum, pushing him away. Dean blinks in confusion, and then notices that in between his name, Cass is saying, "No, wait."

Dean groans and rubs his thumb over Cass' wet mouth. "No, come on," he says -- okay, whines. "Cass, it can wait, we can -- whatever, but after, okay, please?"

"Dean. _Dean."_ His hand falls away from Cass' mouth, and he watches it bloom into a wide smile. "This is Sam's bed," he says.

He blinks a few times, and when the words settle into his brain, he can't help but start laughing, and Cass smiles more and more, like he's going supernova. "C'mere," Dean says, wrapping his arms around Cass' waist and pulling til they both come up on their knees, Cass tipping clumsily against him, gripping the shoulders of his t-shirt. Dean kisses behind his ear, then his lips lightly, then between his eyes. "I missed you," Dean says. "I didn't miss Purgatory. I missed _you_."

"Oh, you're so pretty," Cass says, touching his cheek with one hand, nuzzling his other cheek. "Your soul by Hellfire -- your face in moonlight. You are the most beautiful thing..."

"See, what I like about you," Dean says softly, letting his fingertips trace just inside the waistband of Cass' track pants, "is you always make that sound like a compliment."

Cass draws back enough to give him a puzzled look. "Of course it's a compliment. It's inherently a compliment."

"Not really," Dean says. "I know it sounds weird, I know humans are -- really weird, but -- most of the time it's not."

"But you don't want me to stop?"

Maybe sometimes he does. It's hard to shake that defensive jump he gets, that need to kick back and prove himself against twenty years of _I hear you have some questions to ask us, pretty boy_ and _you sure you're up to that? Would hate to mess up your pretty face_ and _that pretty mouth ever do anything but start trouble?_ It's hard not to hear hundreds of voices telling him that he's not the kind of man his father was, the kind who's automatically entitled to a man's measure of respect -- and that every last one of his darkest secrets is, no matter what he says or does, written _all over his pretty face._

But then there's Cass, and it's not just that Dean knows he's being completely innocent when he says _so pretty_ or, more often, _oh, beautiful._ It's more that Cass always seems to mean something more than _I like to look at you_ , that beauty is something to him that Dean's grimy, broke-ass, utilitarian life has barely given him the tools to understand. Like when Cass sees something that's got balance and harmony to it, he's hearing the music of the spheres, like it proves there's still an order out there, and that maybe the world is still pleasing to God -- Shaker style or something. He thinks it gives Cass back a little taste of the faith that he threw away years ago to save Dean's life, and like hell Dean's going to make him feel like he's not allowed to have that.

"Could listen to it all day," Dean says, and kisses him.

Getting vaguely vertical seemed like it was going to be step one toward moving them out of the wrong bedroom, but it's not really turning out that way. Dean put on his tightest pair of jeans when he got out of the shower (sue him), so that's some measure of protection, but Cass is wearing stretchy, slouching-around pants and no underwear, so what the fuck is Dean supposed to do with that? Of course he's going to slide his hands in along Cass' hips, stroking over his ass, aiding and abetting his cock's attempt to breathe the air of freedom once more. And for once Cass isn't trying to be the voice of reason; he's locked around Dean's neck like he's saving the last redwood and kissing him desperately, and it's cute and hot and flattering and all that, but it means that no one is the voice of reason, and there's a non-zero chance Dean's going to throw him down and do things to him on Sam's bedspread that will make sure none of them will be able to look each other in the eye over breakfast for months.

"Babe, you gotta let go," Dean manages. "Come on, my room." Cass' eyes glint dangerously and he smiles even more dangerously, leaning back in to catch Dean in another kiss while the world suddenly tilts and makes that weird _whommm_ sound in his inner ear that means-- "Oh, you fucking show-off," Dean says, but they're on his bed now, and that means he's allowed to shove Cass to his back and--

He can't remember what he was planning to do other than push his tongue into Cass' mouth, but that part's going _great._ He thinks he had big plans, but the way Cass smells and the way he _tastes_ and the way he works his bent leg in between them to press against Dean's groin with his knee -- Dean can't really keep a train of thought -- why is Cass' _knee_ sexy, what is happening right now?

Cass hums in satisfaction when Dean has to stop for breath, and he pushes the tips of two fingers under the sleeve of Dean's t-shirt, and it's such a random little move, but for some reason it goes straight through Dean, and oh holy shit, is Cass _good in bed?_ Since when? Why? "Take this off. Let me see you," he says, low and calm and almost lazy, like he's done having to work for any of this, and now it's Dean's turn. Dean's dick throbs so hard he thinks he might have an aneurysm.

Dean kneels up over him and skims his t-shirt off, and Cass' eyes go big and soft, stroking over Dean's skin before his hands follow along. He lets his palms slide across Dean's pecs and around to his arms to flow down his biceps, and not gonna lie, it does feel a little like Cass is checking him over at the State Fair, but he's past minding it. He's just hoping for the blue ribbon. "All of it," Cass says, and at least he sounds a little shakier now, that's a minor victory. "I want to see everything."

It's pretty tough to get out of his tightest jeans while on his knees in a way that isn't completely klutzy, but he does his best, with no help from Cass, he might add. "Am I the only one getting naked here?" Dean says, because he's very naked now, and Cass is still wearing his tented-out track pants and that goddamned thrift-store sweatshirt.

"You seem to be," Cass says with a little smile. He brings his knees up with his feet flat on the bed, and it feels obvious and natural to settle down on Cass' hips, the shape of his cock obvious under Dean's ass, and lean back a little against the backstop of Cass' thighs. Cass gives him a little nod of approval, and Dean is just not ready to think about how much he likes that -- how far he'd go just to get a pat on the head from Cass. He's just gotten to Pass Go, Collect Two Hundred Dollars on his last sexual identity crisis, and he needs a breather before the next round.

Cass lets his hands roam without any obvious agenda. He rubs lightly up Dean's thighs, then strokes over Dean's cock with the same easy touch, and then he's moved back up to Dean's chest, where he presses his thumb over each -- spoke or spike or sunbeam or whatever those are -- on his tattoo. There's a lot of them, but Cass is in no rush. "You're killing me, Cass," Dean finally says, when he can't take it anymore.

"You say that a lot," Cass says. "I used to find it very worrisome, before I realized it had no particular meaning."

"It does too have a meaning," he says. "It means, that thing you're doing, I don't like it."

"Well, that's clearly not what it means," Cass nearly purrs, moving on to tracing the pentagram with his thumb. "As far as I can tell it means, that thing you're doing, I have no control over it, and that gives me an emotion of some unspecified kind."

Which isn't even _true_ , but Dean's feeling a little light-headed for debate team practice right now. "Could you just do something useful, please?" Dean says, taking Cass by both his wrists and pushing his hands down.

Cass allows himself to be shifted, but he settles his hands on Dean's waist and starts exploring his hipbones, which is only a little better. "Why are you in such a hurry?" he asks. "I thought having time to spend on this was an advantage. That now we can do whatever we want."

"Hey, I'm down for doing whatever we want," Dean says. "I'm just not finding this whole self-denial concept here as appealing as you seem to. Maybe you just don't have the hang of decadence yet."

"Hm," Cass says. "You're probably right. But I am a good student, so why don't you show me?" He lets go of Dean completely, his hands resting along with the rest of him on the bed, and just as Dean's about to protest that this is moving in the opposite direction he'd been hoping for, Cass drops his voice and says, "Do what you want, Dean. Show me."

His first thought is that Cass _can't_ mean what it sounds like he means, but who is he kidding, of course Cass' idea of sex is staring at Dean like a big creepy weirdo. "What, all by myself?" Dean says impatiently. "Cass, I don't have a problem doing this without you, but I've had, you know, every other night of my life for that, so I was hoping this time we could do _literally anything else_."

"I'm right here," Cass says. "And you might've had every other night of your life for this, but it's my first opportunity. Indulge me."

An unsettling thought occurs to him, and he should probably be diplomatic about it, but instead he just comes right out with, "Is this another test?"

Cass tilts his head, a familiar Cass gesture that looks different when he's on Dean's pillow. "Does it feel like a test?" Dean shrugs, which Cass correctly interprets as _kinda, yeah,_ and it makes Cass' eyes soften as he takes pity on Dean and goes back to stroking his thigh. "It's not," he says. "You can't fail at this. But you've always taken a certain amount of pride in your ability to please your lovers, I know. I thought I was providing useful information about my preferences, but -- don't ever feel that you can fail me here, like this. You couldn't possibly."

"This is -- really what you're into?" Dean knows he shouldn't complain; plenty of people have way weirder kinks than a little voyeurism. There are people in the world who can only get off by having ostrich feathers shoved up their ass, there's all kinds of people. Dean's guy just wants a little live webcam action; in the grand scheme of things it's as tame as it gets. He doesn't know why he's being such a baby about it.

"Am I _into_ finally having permission to look my fill of you?" Cass says with quiet amusement. "Am I into watching you surrender the defenses you use to wall up your pleasure, because you know you're safe here with me, because you know your happiness makes me happy? I am. I'm _into_ any number of other things, too, and we can choose something else if it's important to you. But yes. I very much am."

"No, it's-- Hey, I aim to please," Dean says, because -- oh, he's -- starting to get it. Cass _is_ good in bed (holy shit), at least here in Dean's bed, because Cass has already figured out that the tricks that work great for a one-night wonder aren't the same things you do when you're -- building trust, building a relationship, building a life around someone who loves you for all the reasons and no reason. Somehow, Cass knows that you work a little harder for the person you have plans for, not because it's a test, but because you'd never want to show up for them with less than the best you've got. "There's lube in the drawer," Dean says. "Hand it over here; if we're gonna do this, let's do it right."

Now that he's got it hammered through his thick skull that he's not doing this because of Cass' kinks, he's doing this _for Cass,_ it's not so intimidating. Cass being pretty hot for Dean is the worst-kept secret on multiple planes of existence, so it's not like Dean's got a big uphill climb or anything. And whatever weird hang-ups Dean might have, his dick has never not been on-board for this. Even drizzling the lube on cold doesn't buy him much time, and he knows it would be cheating to do a half-assed job just to make it last longer. Cass wants to see what flips his switch, so Dean goes for it like a lifetime of shared hotel rooms, a lifetime of stolen fake-naps in his car on the side of the road, a lifetime of ticking clocks have taught him -- long, hard pulls, twist and grind around the base, balls gathered up in his free hand -- and he's dripping on Cass in minutes, flexing his thighs, hunching forward a little even though the full-on webcam experience should probably be more geared to display. But he doesn't think Cass wants him to show off like a porn star; he's pretty sure Cass wants to see what he's like when he's got nothing at all on his mind but getting off.

"Oh," Cass says weakly, touching Dean's arm where the muscles bunch and release. "Oh -- are you mine? Can I have this now -- can I have you?"

It sounds almost rhetorical, so he could probably get away with just letting Cass babble to himself, but Dean's pretty sure the right answer here is going to pay off for him in the long run, so he says, "Yeah, of course. All yours, babe, any time you want."

He gets his balance worked out so he can fuck forward into his fist and rock backwards to grind on Cass, and fuck, that's working for both of them. Cass' pants are wet now from the lube and from Dean's precome and Cass' too, and his sweatshirt has ridden up, the tip of his cock poking up against his stomach, but he's _still fucking dressed,_ which might be a new kink for Dean. And now he's thinking about doing this in Cass' lap while he's wearing his damn suit, and untying Cass' tie and unbuttoning his shirt and licking in the hollow of his throat while Cass just leans back and lets him, and oh fuck, oh _fuck_ he's ready to come, Cass is so good at this, Cass is _so good._

He stops just before that, leans forward and puts his hand on Cass' face, and even though it's still slippery with lube he can get just enough control to tip Cass' head back, so he kisses under Cass' jaw and he kisses Cass' mouth and he says, "Cass? Angel? I wanna, can I ask you for something, too?"

"Yes," Cass gasps. "Anything. Anything. The world on a string."

Dean smiles a little. Such a dork. He kisses Cass once more and says, "Is it okay if I suck you now? I want to still be hard when I do it." Cass makes a noise that is definitely not a word and is definitely also the word _yes_ , so Dean just rolls with that second one.

The _still fucking dressed_ thing is hot and all, but Dean thinks he's well and truly done with it now. Cass helps him get the sweatshirt off, and then the pants, which Dean's not sure will ever be a wearable item of clothing again, not that he has any regrets. He'll buy Cass thirty pairs of black track pants if he wants them. Suddenly Dean kind of gets the voyeur thing, because it hits him all at once that he's never seen Cass' body like this before, that he's seen most every part of Cass but not at the same time, and he's -- he's awesome, he's -- gorgeous, strong and faintly golden, with muscles that are thick but also smoothly balanced, and a thick cock that stands straight forward. "Fuck," Dean says softly, running his hands up the solid insides of Cass' thighs to push them far enough up and apart that there will be room for Dean's shoulders between them. "You're -- fuck, you're hot."

"I'm glad you think so," Cass says. "Are you sure this is what you want? I owe you fourteen blowjobs."

It takes Dean a second to process that statement, which in his defense is the _weirdest fucking thing_ anyone's ever said to him in bed, trust Cass to set the gold standard. "Were you -- keeping score in Purgatory?"

"Not on purpose," Cass says, a little defensively. "I just have a good memory."

Dean laughs and kisses inside his thigh. "You don't owe me, angel. And don't keep count anymore, it's depressing." He doesn't mention the part where, if he has his way, Cass will stay in the red on the blowjob accounting ledger for the rest of time, because sure Dean likes having stuff done to his dick as much as the next guy, but there's something goddamn addictive about swallowing Cass down, some combination of vulnerability and sensory overload and the needy, begging noises he can drag out of this ancient and powerful celestial being. It's a rush like nothing else he's ever tried, better than giving head to anyone else (not that Dean has much to say against those other times, either).

Cass has the perfect cock for it, too, thick enough to make Dean stretch to take him in, but not all that long. Of course, not all that long is still long enough if Dean's really going for it, and he really goes for it this time, because it's a special occasion. He knows he can't technically deep-throat it, but he also knows that a year of practice got him a lot closer to that goal than he started out, which is encouraging, and he knows that Cass already thinks he _invented_ blowjobs, so Dean is free to compete against his own standards without worrying about letting Cass down.

 _Don't ever think that you could fail me here, like this,_ Dean hears again in his mind, and he can practically feel his heart soften and -- _quiver_ or something, because Cass is -- he's Dean's angel, he's so damn sweet, he's so much kinder and more forgiving than Dean deserves. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but he feels like his throat softens a little at the same time and Cass slides a little deeper -- and maybe it's not wishful thinking, because Cass cries out raggedly and presses Dean tighter between his legs. Dean reaches up to pet his ribs soothingly, and Cass grabs onto his wrist and clings like one of them might drown. It hurts a little, but Dean could honestly not fucking care less.

A little tremor runs through Cass' hips, and it pushes his cock up so that the head bounces a little off Dean's soft palate, and that's kind of hot but it also feels weird and Dean's body kind of up and goes _nope_ all at once, so he's pulling off and coughing before he can think anything through. Cass props up on one elbow and says, "Dean? Are you all right?"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean says hoarsely, and he drops a few perfunctory kisses on Cass' belly and chest as he moves back up to eye-level. Cass doesn't look reassured, so Dean gives him a smile and kisses the corner of his eye. "Just thought we'd better save baby-choke-me-on-your-thick-cock for a different night."

"That sounds horrible," Cass says with a frown. Funny, Dean was just thinking the opposite of that. Obviously negotiations will need to take place, but in the meantime Dean distracts him by slipping his arms underneath Cass and kissing him softly, then letting the kiss go on longer and longer. Their cocks line up against each other, and Dean knows that with maybe just a little bit of lube and/or a little bit of stubbornness they could get off just like this, but for at least a minute he wants to let this kiss be what it wants to be, which is slow -- slow -- slow.

Cass sighs against his lips and drags his fingers through Dean's hair. "You're amazing," he murmurs. "I was lost, I was lost the moment we touched. I've been yours since we began."

"Cass," Dean murmurs back, just a little verbal nuzzle, just because it's the name that's on his mind almost all the time and it feels so good to say. And then because the moment feels so serious, almost formal, he says a little shyly, "Castiel."

Cass chuckles, but it feels warm against his cheek, like Cass' hand feels warm stroking over his shoulder and his back. "Have you ever in your life called me by that name?"

"I think so," Dean says. "Probably? Like, at first I probably did. Do you not want me to?"

"I don't mind," he says. "It -- doesn't always feel like it belongs to me anymore. It's what Heaven calls me, and they have no idea who I am now."

"Yeah, I don't know, it's weird, I guess," Dean says. "Sorry."

Cass kisses him lightly and says, "You can call me whatever you want. I suppose it just feels like -- a soldier's name, to me. And I don't feel like a soldier, here with you."

It's a compliment, Dean thinks, Cass' way of saying that Dean puts him at ease, makes him feel peaceful. But the truth is, Dean wouldn't want him as much without the soldier in him -- or the warrior, or the general or sheriff or whatever Cass is when he's got his blade in his hand and righteous fury in his eyes. "Well," Dean says. "That's what you were when I fell for you. So I guess it's got sentimental value."

Cass hums a little and hooks one leg over Dean's leg, rolling up against him just enough to bring all Dean's focus back to the fact that both of them are feeling real smug about themselves for two guys who haven't managed any orgasms yet. Dean anchors a hand to the small of Cass' back and rolls down in response. Cass grins, and they go on that way for a bit, trading off, licking up and breathing in the broken little sounds they're both making, _Cass_ and _Dean_ and _god, so good_ and _oh, oh please._ Even as it gets a little dirtier and a little more like fucking than honeymooning, they keep hanging on tight.

Dean doesn't notice that he's gone beyond making even the most mindless sounds, lost and breathless, until Cass says in his ear, "You got so quiet."

He laughs shortly and says, "You don't actually have to talk the whole way through, that's -- not a rule or anything."

"But I always value our talks," Cass says, just earnestly enough that Dean's blood-starved brain can't figure out if he's kidding or not.

Dean's cock catches an extra little bit of lube or spit and slides faster against Cass's groin, bringing their hips together harder than he expected. Cass growls and curls his fingers in Dean's back, just the kind of pain Dean likes. "So -- so talk," Dean gasps. "You should learn how to talk dirty, you -- ah -- you've got the voice for it."

"You have to teach me," Cass rumbles, and Dean _really, really_ doesn't think that's gonna be necessary.

"I dunno," he says vaguely, "you're just, just supposed to, uh, say -- tell me how big my dick is and all that."

"I don't think I was paying that sort of attention," Cass says, a little puzzled, "but I guess I'd say it's between six-and-a-half and--"

Dean laughs and groans at the same time and manages to say, "Okay, no talking. I love you, shut up."

And without a fucking beat, Dean's absolutely glorious bitch of an angel smiles at him like fireworks going off over the sky of a better Heaven than the one that exists and says, "I love you, make me."

Dean leans forward and kisses him hard, harder, and he kisses back hard, harder, and it actually brings their dicks a little bit out of the best position, but they're way too far gone for it to matter that much anymore, and Dean thinks he actually _howls_ as he comes, and Cass is arched back on his bed saying, _Dean, Dean, Dean_ endlessly, and it's -- awesome. In every possible way.

There's a sink in Dean's bedroom, which he always thought was weird because right down the hall there's a dormitory-style bathroom, with three showers, two toilets, and two urinals, but apparently the Men of Letters thought it was indecent to shave in public or something. It's handy when he's got wounds that need to be washed out and re-bandaged regularly, and it's also handy when he wants to be a gentleman and clean all the come off himself and his guest before they get under the covers.

"Are we going to bed?" Cass says, sounding a little dazed, when Dean turns off the light and drags Cass in with him. "It's only...."

"Do you know how far Oregon is?" Dean says. "I've been driving since, I dunno, Easter. I'm exhausted, and I'm going to bed."

"Oh," Cass says uncertainly.

Dean takes pity on him and pulls him close, resting along Dean's side with his head on Dean's shoulder. "What's the matter, angel, you don't wanna watch me sleep?"

"No, I actually do," Cass admits. "Is that weird?"

"Yes, but not weirder than-- I dunno. Not that weird, I guess."

Cass kisses his face sweetly and strokes over his collarbone, then squirms around a little for the perfect position. "This bed is actually very comfortable," he says. Dean grunts his agreement. "It's much more comfortable than mine or Sam's," he adds, just slightly accusatory.

"Yup," Dean says. "It's memory foam. It's awesome."

"I just don't understand why all the beds don't have the same-- "

"Because they don't, and this one's mine because it's the best and I'm the oldest." He can feel Cass' jaw twitch open against his shoulder, and he cuts him off with, "I'm the oldest of the two people who inherited this place from their grandfather, don't be difficult in front of the foam. _It remembers."_

Cass snorts a little, but he sounds like he's made his peace with it when he says, "Well, it is very nice."

"Glad to hear it," Dean says, suppressing a yawn. "I'd like my bed to get high ratings from the guy I'm banging."

" _The guy you're banging?"_ Cass says, and -- yeah. Rookie mistake. "Is that what we plan to call it?"

"Dating?" Dean tries again.

"Hm. Better." Dean gives him an apologetic kiss against his hair, and he snuggles back down against Dean's shoulder.

Dean thinks about whether or not it's weird to sleep bare-ass naked like this -- it's weird for him, in the sense of not something he ever does, and it doesn't feel entirely secure, but it seems like -- something other people do, normal people, and god, it feels damn good to have Cass' skin draped along his. He thinks if he doesn't make a habit of it, it's probably not going to get anyone killed -- if he just does it on special occasions or something. God knows when Dean lets himself get sloppy, everyone lives to regret it except for the people who don't, but -- things change, and things do get better, he's better than he was, and -- sometimes things are good, good things happen. Everyone tells him that, and he almost believes it. He tries to believe it, and he comes so close, and this is the closest he thinks he's ever been to trusting God or the plan or the universe, so that's either an improvement or a disastrous fucking mistake, and--

Cass touches the spot between his eyebrows and whispers, "You're frowning."

"Just -- checking the locks," Dean says. "I'm not frowning about -- anything bad. You, or -- this, or anything. I promise." No buyer's remorse, no Monday-morning quarterbacking, no last-minute gay panic. Dean goes through the whole inventory real quick, and he's clean.

Cass reaches across his chest and settles his hand over Dean's other arm in a way that sends an abrupt shiver through Dean's body that's intense but not unpleasant, and he says, "You're safe. You're safe with me, Dean Winchester, and I with you."

"Dork," Dean grumbles.

Cass smiles and kisses his jaw lightly and murmurs, "No. The last of the true romantics."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading, and many more thanks to my stalwart commenters. I spent three months on this story, and I have a serious problem with commitment, so that's A LOT OF TIME for me. Thanks for making it worthwhile, and feel free to come say hi on Tumblr -- I'm [Heatheralicewatson](http://heatheralicewatson.tumblr.com)


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